Ex-football coach Barry Bennell pleads guilty to nine sexual offences
31 July 2020
Former Crewe coach is serving 30-year jail term after being convicted of 50 child sexual offences in 2018
Bennell is serving his fourth jail term having previously been sentenced for similar offences involving 16 other victims. The latest charges were brought by the CPS after it reviewed a file of evidence from Cheshire police relating to allegations of non-recent child sexual abuse.
Paedophile priest forged links with Celtic Boys Club
May 02 2020
An English-based paedophile had connections with Celtic Boys Club it has emerged, strengthening claims of collusion between a network of abusers.
Father Michael Spencer, a priest, teacher and football coach, used his position at Preston Catholic College, Lancashire, to abuse dozens of adolescent boys in the 1970s.
Now evidence has emerged which shows that Spencer, who died in 2000, forged a relationship with Celtic FC’s feeder club and brought young players to Glasgow. Four men who held senior roles with Celtic Boys Club have been convicted of sexual abuse, spanning four decades, in recent years.
Police Scotland is investigating claims that known abusers worked together to molest young footballers.
It came after an independent review — commissioned by the Scottish FA — received “substantive” new evidence of an organised abuse ring operated by paedophile coaches in Scotland and England.
Celtic View, Celtic FC’s official magazine, carried an article praising Spencer in August, 1975. It said he had been invited to Glasgow for a “friendly” match between Celtic Boys Club and his Preston Schoolboys under 15 team.
In 2012 Patrick Raggett, a former lawyer, was awarded £55,000 in damages for the years of abuse Spencer inflicted on him during his schooldays.
Lady Justice Swift at the High Court in London ruled Mr Raggett had been the victim of “insidious” abuse, stating: “Father Spencer took every opportunity to observe naked young boys and film them. He exploited his position to touch and fondle the boys for his own sexual satisfaction.”
Mr Raggett told The Times: “It seems inconceivable to me that Spencer and those responsible for abuse at Celtic Boys Club weren’t in collusion.”
His abuser filmed and photographed him naked on numerous occasions as well as taking shots of him in his football kit and swimming trunks.
Mr Ragget said: “Spencer was a Celtic fanatic and had an obsession with photography and filming. He used to wear a black tracksuit with a Celtic badge and would show cine footage of the Celtic Boys Club playing, which would bore us rigid. I also believe he was sharing naked footage of me with others.”
In 2004 John Cullen, who worked as the official photographer for Celtic View for almost 30 years, admitted taking indecent photographs of boys as young as 10. Cleaners found a black bag containing bundles of black and white images of naked and semi-naked boys in a store room at Celtic Park.
Glasgow sheriff court heard the cache had been hidden there for almost 20 years before the management was alerted, called in the police and sacked Cullen, who was given three years probation.
In 1976 Spencer’s conduct was deemed to be “unsatisfactory”, but he remained at the college until it closed in 1978 before being sent to Orkney.
The review into abuse in Scottish football, due to be published within weeks, is expected to name Gordon Neely, a former Rangers and Hibernian youth coach, as a prolific abuser who worked with other paedophiles in northwest England. Neely died of cancer in 2014.
Celtic FC has said that it is sorry that abuse took place but continues to insist that it was a separate entity to its feeder club.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/paedophile-priest-forged-links-with-celtic-boys-club-5t3sllfrd
Sixth Celtic Boys’ Club coach accused in new child sex claim
The Record has seen a statement – given under oath – by a man describing how he was repeatedly abused by a coach in the early 70s.
24 FEB 2020
sixth Celtic Boys’ Club coach is at the centre of child sexual abuse claims.
The Record has seen a statement – given under oath – by a man now in his late 50s describing how he was repeatedly abused by the man in the early 70s.
He has since visually identified the perpetrator through a Celtic Boys Club (CBC) photo.
This newspaper knows the accused’s identity and cannot name him for legal reasons. But when we approached him at an address in Glasgow, he denied the accusations.
It comes after four men associated with Celtic or CBC – including Jim Torbett and Frank Cairney – were convicted of historical sex abuse against children, while a fifth alleged perpetrator is yet to face justice.
In his sworn statement, the man says he was abused at Barrowfield, the then training ground of Celtic FC.
He said: “The sexual abuse occurred during midweek training. The abuse occurred in the changing rooms at Barrowfield. I can recall this occurring on many occasions.”
The statement claims that other boys were being abused in the same way at the same time.
It says: “The pretext for telling one of the boys to remain with him in the changing rooms was to put oil on the boys’ legs to protect them from the cold.
The latest accused is in the same picture taken at Celtic Park with Jim Torbett (circled left) and Frank Cairney (circled right)
His comments to us suggest claims of abuse involving Torbett were known as far back as 1973.
He said: “I first heard about allegations like this involving Torbett when a meeting was called in 1973 at the boys’ club. They explained to us what had been done, it would be 1972 or 1973.
“Torbett was off the scene for a while but then came back. I never thought that sort of thing was going on. I loved being with the CBC. But now it is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I only used wintergreen on the boys if they had muscle tightness.”
The Record understands the criminal case against him has not proceeded because of a “lack of corroboration”.
The complainer told lawyers he was abused repeatedly and that other boys were attacked by the same man.
A photo from 1973, obtained by the Record, shows the coach posing with boys at a cinema night out.
It was taken at the Studio Cinema in Glasgow and shows an outing which was part of the Cine Club at CBC, a club set up by Torbett, who is now serving six years in jail.
It is suspected the Cine Club was a way of allowing further contact with boys.
Another image of the coach, from the 80s, shows him alongside Torbett and Cairney in a team shot.
The Record has also obtained a letter to Celtic FC’s lawyers from Thompson’s Solicitors – who are representing the man – detailing the claims of abuse and seeking damages.
In May, we revealed that Celtic FC investigated and cleared boys’ club leaders in 1986, describing claims against them as “scurrilous”.
This is at odds with Celtic FC’s previous contention that the two were entirely separate entities and that concerns over the boys’ club leaders only arose in the 90s.
Celtic FC then revealed they had been carrying out a new two-year investigation into the abuse claims.
Torbett, 71, the founder of CBC, CBC coach McCafferty, 73, and Cairney, 83, were jailed last year.
Gerald King, 66, a former CBC chairman, was convicted of abusing four boys and a girl but avoided jail.
Last year, the club said they were conducting their own investigation.
In letters to two MSPs, chief executive Peter Lawwell said the club’s insurers had appointed a “wholly independent and experienced lawyer” to investigate.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/man-tells-cops-repeatedly-sexually-21562500
Paedophiles in football ‘co-operated as a network’
January 18 2020
An investigation has been opened into claims that some of the country’s most notorious predators worked together in a paedophile network that preyed on young footballers.
A review commissioned by the Scottish FA will hear evidence next week that Barry Bennell, a former scout with Manchester City and Crewe Alexandra, and Jim McCafferty, a former Celtic kitman and boys’ club coach, were part of an organised cross-border abuse ring.
Bennell, 66, is serving a 30-year sentence for abusing boys on what was described as an “industrial scale”. McCafferty was jailed last year for molesting youngsters over a period of 24 years.
One survivor has presented fresh evidence, claiming he was abused separately by McCafferty and Bennell after being introduced to them by Bill Kelly, a…
Harry Dunn, the former Rangers and Liverpool youth scout died before he could stand trial over abuse charges in 2017.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/paedophiles-in-football-co-operated-as-a-network-j65bcgk7s
Celtic Boys’ Club beast Jim Torbett to face new allegation of sexually abusing boy in toy shop
It is claimed Torbett preyed on the youngster in a toy shop in Glasgow and abused him at a flat in the city.
15 JAN 2020
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/celtic-boys-club-beast-jim-21281343
Ex-Celtic Boys Club manager Frank Cairney faces abuse charges
January 14 2020
A former senior figure at Celtic FC’s feeder club is facing charges of sexual abuse, The Times can disclose.
Frank Cairney, 84, served as manager of Celtic Boys Club from 1974 until 1991. A Crown Office spokeswoman confirmed Mr Cairney has been charged and is involved in a “live solemn case”.
The Times understands that the charges relate to the alleged sexual abuse of young people. It is expected that Mr Cairney, of Uddingston, South Lanarkshire, will appear in court within months. A source said: “A court date hasn’t been set
Three men associated with Celtic Boys Club have been found guilty of abusing young kids, prompting claims of a paedophile ring.
The Parkhead side has expressed “regret and sorrow” for the victims but insist they are not legally responsible as the boys club was a separate organisation.
Former Celtic Boys Club coaches Jim McCafferty, 73, and Jim Torbett, 71, were caged for sexually abusing starlets.
Ex-club chairman Gerald King, 66, dodged prison last year despite being found guilty of targeting five kids.
Fifth coach accused of child sex abuse at Celtic Boys Club
Dec 23, 2019
A fifth coach at Celtic FC’s feeder club has been accused of child sex abuse, The Times can disclose.
Four senior figures at Celtic Boys Club have been convicted of molesting dozens of young players over four decades.
Now Lyness Malley, a former coach and official with the boys’ club, has been accused of repeatedly abusing a young player at Barrowfield, a Glasgow training ground owned by the senior club.
Mr Malley, 81, strongly denies the claims, insisting that they are malicious and motivated by a desire for revenge after he dropped his accuser from his team. He accepted that he had regularly massaged the thighs of his players with oil but said there was no sexual motivation behind it. He said that he had never touched boys inappropriately.
Civil action is being prepared against Celtic FC over its alleged failure to protect the boy from abuse, said to have taken place in 1969 and 1970.
A number of further court summonses are due to be served against Celtic FC by Thompsons solicitors, which is representing about 20 abuse survivors, early next year.
Mr Malley, who served over decades as a coach, treasurer and minutes secretary with the boys’ club, was interviewed by police in connection with the allegations but the case did not proceed because of a lack of corroboration — an essential requirement in Scots law.
Thompsons alleges that Celtic FC failed to carry out “suitable and sufficient checks” on youth coaches and did not monitor them appropriately.
While expressing “regret and sorrow” for the victims, Celtic FC has refused to accept responsibility for abuse, where found, within the boys’ club — insisting it was an entirely separate organisation.
Mr Malley said he had always acted appropriately with the children. “I’m not that type of person,” he told The Times. “I have done nothing wrong.”
Mr Malley, who also held a senior position with the Scottish Youth Club Association, added that he had no memory of his accuser.
In February Frank Cairney, 83, former manager of the boys’ club, was convicted of sexually abusing young footballers and was jailed. He had his sentence reduced last month.
In May Jim McCafferty, 73, a former Celtic FC kit man and boys’ club coach, admitted 12 child sexual abuse charges and was jailed for six years.
Last year Gerald King, 66, one-time chairman of the boys’ club was convicted of abusing four boys and a girl. Jim Torbett, 71, who helped to found it, was jailed for six years.
Mr Malley, who was involved with the feeder club from 1969 until the late 1980s, said he had no inkling that systematic abuse had been taking place.
Thompsons solicitors urged abuse victims to come forward. Celtic FC did not respond to a request for comment.
Former Celtic Boys Club coach Frank Cairney probed by US cops over ‘sex attack’ on player during trip
26 Jul 2019
CELTIC Boys Club paedophile Frank Cairney is being probed by US cops over an alleged sex attack.
Detectives in New Jersey are looking into an assault said to have taken place during a summer tour.
The investigation comes as former Celtic chairman Jack McGinn claimed he urged boys club officials to alert police after being told Cairney, now 84, abused a teen during the 1991 trip — 30 years before he was brought to justice
US police chief George King said: “The Kearny Police Department detective bureau is reviewing this information and is in consultation with the Hudson County prosecutors office.”
Cairney, of Viewpark, Lanarkshire, led a party of 20 teenagers and five adults who were based in the town during a visit to mark the 25th anniversary of the boys club.
Ex-club official Jim McNally reportedly contacted Celtic at the time after learning of the alleged abuse in the States.
Celtic ‘haven’t contacted Boys Club abuse victims since launching 2-year probe’
He then went to Celtic Park where he claimed Mr McGinn showed him a copy of Cairney’s resignation letter.
The document was said to have suggested that a promotion at Cairney’s day job had left him unable to sufficiently carry out his duties as boys club coach.
Asked last week if that was an accurate account of the meeting, ex-Hoops chairman Mr McGinn said: “It could be, or it could be vaguely different.”
It is understood cops in Scotland were never told of the alleged US incident.
Shamed Cairney was jailed for four years in February for preying on eight young players at St Columba’s Boys Guild in Viewpark and Celtic Boys Club’s under-16 team.
We revealed claims of a “paedophile ring” at the boys club after fellow former coaches Jim McCafferty, 73, and Jim Torbett, 71, were also caged for sexually abusing starlets.
Ex-club chairman Gerald King, 66, dodged prison in January despite being found guilty of targeting five kids.
Celtic has expressed “regret and sorrow” for the victims but insist the Parkhead side is not legally responsible as the boys club was a separate organisation.
Last week, Cairney’s second bid for freedom was rejected
Celtic inquiry ‘has failed to contact victims’
20 July 2019
Celtic FC has failed to contact survivors of systemic sexual abuse at its feeder club despite launching its own investigation into the scandal two years ago, a senior lawyer has claimed.
Last month Peter Lawwell, the club’s chief executive, announced club insurers had appointed a “wholly independent and experienced lawyer” to delve into the evidence of child abuse at Celtic Boys Club that has led to four former coaches being jailed.
In a statement he said: “We respect any claimants’ rights and out advisers will communicate with them and their representatives directly in the proper manner, respecting their rights to confidentiality.”
more here:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/celtic-inquiry-has-failed-to-contact-victims-nkl850cnj
Football coach Bob Higgins jailed for 24 years for abusing trainees
12 June 2019
A former youth football coach has been jailed for 24 years and three months for abusing young players.
Bob Higgins sexually touched and groped 24 victims, most of them trainees at Southampton FC and Peterborough United.
In May, Higgins, 66, was found guilty at a retrial of 45 counts of indecent assault between 1971 and 1996. He was convicted of another count last year.
Judge Peter Crabtree called Higgins a “predatory, cunning” serial sex abuser who “carefully groomed” the teenagers.
Higgins’ victims told Winchester Crown Court of suicidal thoughts and relationship problems later in life.
An emotional statement, read by Dean Radford on behalf of the victims on the steps of the court, said Higgins’ “arrogance was his downfall”.
“You can call us brave, you can call us courageous – we were not – we were the unlucky ones for falling into the entrapment of Higgins’s manipulative, deceitful and sexual behaviour,” it said.
During Higgins’ trial, prosecutors told the court he was “idolised” by trainees, who viewed him as a mentor and father figure.
Victims said they were abused during post-exercise soapy massages, in Higgins’ car while he played love songs on the stereo and at his home where he cuddled with boys on his sofa.
‘Severe psychological harm’
Judge Crabtree said Higgins had shown “not one jot of remorse”.
“They believed you held the key to their futures,” he told the defendant.
“You normalised cuddling and stroking, which paved the way for more intimate abuse.
“For many the impact extended to their performance on the field or to turning their backs on a football career. Some of them suffered severe psychological harm.”
Higgins made no reaction as the sentence was passed.
The allegations arose after the NSPCC set up a dedicated helpline for people who had encountered childhood abuse within football.
It was launched after a number of former footballers, including Billy Seymour, spoke on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme in November 2016.
- Court hears impact on Billy Seymour’s life
- Southampton apologise to Bob Higgins’ abuse victims
- Sex abuse coach ‘was god to players’
Higgins stood trial last year, but a retrial was ordered after jurors failed to reach verdicts on 48 counts of indecent assault.
Mr Seymour, a Southampton youth player who went on to play for Coventry City and Millwall, had waived his right to anonymity to speak publicly.
He gave evidence at last year’s trial but was killed in a car crash in January before Higgins’ retrial.
On Tuesday, his mother Jean read his victim impact statement, written before his death, to the court.
Addressed to Higgins, it said: “I am sick to my stomach of giving you any more thought. I have been a broken man. You have debilitated my whole life.
“The mist is clearing. I can see some light at the end of the tunnel.
“I will beat the hating of you in my soul. This is closure. Goodbye, Bob Higgins.”
Mr Radford had given evidence as a character witness because Higgins was found not guilty of abusing him at a separate trial in the early 1990s.
Reading the victims’ statement, he said: “There were so many warning signs out there but no-one would listen – that let this monster walk free and carry on abusing.
“We believe that many people must have known what was going on, the truth will come out in the end.
“Today is not just about us complainants and witnesses who have suffered through this nightmare, it’s the wives, girlfriends, sons and daughters who have suffered with us.”
He also paid tribute to their “dear friend” Billy Seymour.
“We did it Billy – just like you said we would, you can now rest in peace.”
‘Further allegations’
Det Ch Insp David Brown, of Hampshire Constabulary, said the conviction was “testament to the bravery of those who came forward to give evidence”.
“There can be no understanding of the damage that individual has caused to the lives of the people who stood with us through the criminal trial”.
He said the force was “assessing a number of reports” of further allegations against Higgins.
Southampton FC offered an “unreserved apology” to his victims last week.
In a statement, the club said it recognised boys under its care “suffered exposure to abuse when they should have received protection from any form of harm”.
During his time as a coach, Bob Higgins worked with young footballers who would go on to become national heroes and household names.
But others were not so fortunate.
Some were haunted by their ordeals, and gave up on football entirely.
Such was Higgins’s hold over those he abused, many felt unable to say anything, even to close family members, for up to 30 years.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-48608863
Former Celtic chairman claims ‘no knowledge’ of his business links to Boys’ Club sex beast Jim Torbett
Kevin Kelly denies he was a director of the Trophy Centre which was the firm run by convicted paedophile Torbett..
10 JUN 2019
Former Celtic chairman Kevin Kelly has claimed ignorance of his business links with Celtic Boys’ Club beast Jim Torbett.
And Kelly, who was vice-chairman of the club when it investigated and then cleared boys’ club “leaders” of any wrongdoing – and was also president of the boys’ club – has told the Daily Record he has “no knowledge of the past”.
Speaking for the first time since the abuse scandal emerged, he said he had no idea that beasts Torbett and Frank Cairney were preying on children over decades on his watch.
The Daily Record revealed last month details of a 1986 probe by the Celtic FC board into allegations of boys being taken to weekend tournaments that did not exist, boys being taken out socially and boys being late home from training.
It appeared to be at odds with Celtic’s claim that the boys’ club was “entirely separate” from Celtic FC and that the club had first learned of allegations against boys’ club predators in the 1990s.
Four paedophiles linked to the boys’ club have been convicted of preying on children in recent months.
At the time of the 1986 probe Kelly, now 81, was vice-chairman of Celtic FC, president of Celtic Boys’ Club and worked for Torbett at his Trophy Centre business.
When we visited Kelly at his home, he was reluctant to discuss the abuse scandal. Asked about the 1986 probe, he said: “I’ve nothing to say about that.
“The club are looking into all these things, so I’m quite happy about that.
“No, sorry about that. As I say I’m quite happy with what’s gone to the police and everything.”
We put it to Kelly the 1986 probe by Celtic FC had cleared Torbett and Cairney of any wrongdoing and that Celtic FC had then endorsed the pair by branding the claims as “scurrilous” and saying they should be “buried once and for all”.
Many of Torbett’s victims were abused after he had been cleared by Celtic FC. Kelly said: “I’m quite happy for the club to do whatever they have to do. Those who committed crimes are in jail and that’s where they should be. That’s all I’ve got to say.”
When we asked about his directorship of the Trophy Centre – Torbett’s company – he said: “I wasn’t a director.”
We put it to him that he has a legal listing as a director of the company.
He said: “Look, I’ve no knowledge of the past, I’m sorry about that.”
Asked if he had knowledge at the time of what was going on, Kelly said: “Not at all, I’d never have joined it if I knew that.
“A lot of it is conjecture and it’s taken the police a long time, and I’ve been told by the police to stick by my statement and not to talk to anyone else until it is all resolved.”
Records show Kelly became a director of the Trophy Centre in October 1989. Torbett was first convicted of sexually abusing three boys in 1998 and jailed for two years.
But Kelly remained a director of the Trophy Centre until 2005.
Boys’ club founder Torbett was jailed in November for six years, former general manager Cairney was jailed in January for four years, fellow boys’ club coach and Celtic FC man Jim McCafferty, 73, was jailed for six years and nine months, while former chairman Gerald King was convicted of preying on children at a Glasgow school, but avoided jail.
Records also show that Kelly and Torbett were the sole directors of a now dissolved company – Panrole Ltd – set up in April 1991.
Helene Gray, 71, who’s son Andrew was a victim of Torbett at Celtic Boys’ Club, said: “There are many who held authority who continue to deny and deflect from what my son and many other young boys suffered whilst in their care at Celtic Boys Club. Their silence and denial is sickening.”
Andrew died after an accident on holiday aged 41. His testimony helped convict Torbett.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/ex-celtic-chairman-claims-no-16490968
Celtic confirm sex abuse probe and deny ‘doing nothing’
1 June 2019
Celtic FC has been conducting its own two-year investigation into historical child sex abuse, according to its chief executive.
In letters to two MSPs, Peter Lawwell hit back at “misconceptions” the football club had been “doing nothing”.
He said the club’s insurers had appointed a “wholly independent and experienced lawyer” to investigate.
Last month the club expressed “regret and sorrow” 10 days after an ex-youth coach was jailed for child sex abuse.
Jim McCafferty, 73, was the fourth man connected to either Celtic or Celtic Boys Club to be convicted of child sex offences in the past year.
- MSPs criticise Celtic over sex abuse
- Celtic abuse regret ‘too little, too late’
- The abuser who preyed on dreams of football stardom
The club’s response to the crimes involving the former boys club coaches was last week criticised by two MSPs.
And both have issued fresh criticism after receiving a letter from Mr Lawwell.
Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwel
James Dornan, the SNP MSP for Glasgow Cathcart, told BBC Scotland he wants more clarity on what the investigation has involved.
He said: “If nobody has spoken to victims about their experiences and what they would like to see to overcome those experiences and how those experiences came about then that’s not an investigation.
“If what the investigation is about is how they can legally prove that Celtic Boys Club and Celtic Football Club are separate entities then that’s a sham.”
‘More than a club’
Asked about his reaction to the scandal as a fan of the club, Mr Dornan said: “I would much rather be here having this conversation about any other club in the world than having it about Celtic.
“I grew up to believe that Celtic was more than a football club, and I like to believe it still is, but this and the way the board have handled this.
“In one way, I’m glad that my dad is not here to see that Celtic are behaving in this way on what is probably the most important issue that club has ever faced.”
Conservative MSP Mr Tomkins tweeted his reaction to the letter.
He wrote: “I know of no reason why legal investigation into what Celtic FC knew about the abuse at the boys club (and when they knew it) needs to be in secret.
“Nothing in Celtic’s letter to me undermines my belief that these matters require to be ‘independently’ investigated and that, if necessary, Celtic will have to establish and administer a compensation scheme for victims of abuse.
“Finally, having an unnamed lawyer secretly investigating a matter does nothing to help, guide or support the victims and their families. It is their rights and interests that no one should overlook in this matter.”
Mr Lawwell has written to both MSPs, saying it is “important that we clarify a number of issues which appear to be misconceptions at present”.
And he told Mr Dornan: “We believe that your criticisms, which suggested that we were not a caring club and that we were not taking our responsibilities seriously was both unfair and misguided”.
In the letters released to the Press Association, Mr Lawwell stated: “The first misconception is that the club is doing nothing and abdicating responsibility. That is simply not true.”
Instead he claimed legal processes meant the club was “constrained” in what it could say publicly, describing it as being “highly frustrating for all”.
‘Proper manner’
But he also insisted it was not appropriate to discuss sensitive legal matters “through newspapers or on social media”.
The Celtic chief executive said: “Some time ago our insurers appointed a wholly independent and experienced lawyer who is investigating and dealing with this matter on behalf of the club.
He added: “We respect any claimants’ rights and out advisers will communicate with them and their representatives directly in the proper manner, respecting their rights to confidentiality.”
Celtic will “ensure that we continue to meet all our obligations”, Mr Lawwell stressed.
The chief executive also claimed that in the “very delicate and of course tragic set of circumstances” Mr Dornan’s letter had “appeared to disregard the importance of the due process of law”.
Sympathy for victims
He added: “Unfortunately legal processes are slow, and are also generally confidential. We have had to balance all of these factors in how was have addressed the issues to date.
“While we recognise that this issue is in the public domain we do not consider that means that we should deal with the matter through the media, but rather through the legal system.
“We would stress that we regret that the incidents took place and reiterate our sympathy for all victims who suffered abuse. We are following legal advice and respecting an ongoing process.
“The matter continues to receive our full attention and that we take all our obligations, including legal, very seriously.”
But solicitor Patrick McGuire, who represents survivors of abuse, again accused the club of “too little, too late”.
He said: “If Celtic have been carrying out a covert investigation why did it take the intervention of two MSPs to bring it to light?
“Why did they not set the record straight when survivors and campaigners started demanding answers and actions more than a year ago?”
He also asked why such an investigation was needed given the outcome of the court cases.
Last November Celtic Boys Club founder Jim Torbett was jailed for six years for sexually abusing three boys over eight years.
After his conviction Celtic took two days to issue a statement, which expressed “deep regret”.
Earlier this year, the boys club’s former chairman, Gerald King, was given a three-year probation order for sexually abusing four boys and a girl in the 1980s.
And in February Frank Cairney, a former manager of the boys club, was jailed for four years after being convicted of nine charges of sexually abusing young footballers.
Last month McCafferty admitted 12 charges related to child sex abuse against 10 teenage boys between 1972 and 1996.
He was sentenced to six years and nine months in prison.
My office has received several letters from constituents calling for a public inquiry into Celtic boys club. We are looking at the matter very carefully. This story would appear to strengthen the case for a full inquiry
Cross-border ‘paedo ring’ between Celtic Boys Club and Barry Bennell being investigated by SFA and FA
Vile McCafferty admitted preying on ten teenage boys between 1972 and 1996 — including one attack carried out at Celtic Park
23rd May 2019
AN ALLEGED paedophile ring between Celtic Boys Club pervs and Barry Bennell is to be “investigated by the Scottish and English FAs”.
It’s reported that the footie authorities are probing a “partnership” between Jim McCafferty and the monster.
McCafferty admitted preying on ten teenage boys between 1972 and 1996 — including one attack carried out at Celtic Park.
Meanwhile pervert Bennell was convicted of 50 abuse charges relating to 12 lads under his wing at Crewe Alexandria and Manchester City from 1979 and 1991.
A source close to the Independent Review of Sexual Abuse in Scottish Football told The Times: “The partnership between McCafferty and Bennell is included in the investigation.
“There will be full disclosure.”
A final report from the review was delayed last year to avoid prejudicing criminal proceedings.
It’s understood that it’s set to contain evidence that McCafferty took youngsters from Glasgow to tournaments in the northwest of England where they were introduced to Bennell.
And according to the Times, the information has been shared with the English FA.
Lawyers are convinced that McCafferty was part of a network of abuse – which also involved boys club founder Jim Torbett and Bennell.
Patrick McGuire, a partner with Thompsons Solicitors, said: “It was our survivor clients who were able to present the evidence of links between McCafferty and Bennell, and McCafferty and Torbett.
“There is clear evidence of trips being organised in both directions: Bennell bringing boys up to Scotland and McCafferty taking boys’ clubs on trips to the Greater Manchester area.
Celtic Boys Club player targeted by paedo Jim McCafferty says trips to play evil Barry Bennell’s teams ‘no accident’
“I’m glad the SFA have finally taken account of the evidence that we have been putting forward.”
We told you earlier this month how a former Celtic Boys Club player targeted by McCafferty reckons it’s “no coincidence” he took young players to a tournament attended by predator Bennell.
The ex-starlet told how he travelled south to play against teams run by disgraced former coach Bennell, 65, who was caged for 31 years in 2018.
Bennell was said to be a “pied piper” who told boys he’d make their footie dreams come true.
A judge described him as the “devil incarnate”.
The victim — who was also molested by Frank Cairney, 83, while at Celtic Boys Club — said: “The fact McCafferty was taking teams to England and playing tournaments that Barry Bennell was involved in is not a coincidence.
Gerry Mccann was Celtic club physio from 1990s +. Celtic boys club had AT LEAST 4serial connected paedos +links to Bennell.
Why hasn’t the Celtic Paedo link been chased?
Was McCann blackmailed over the Celtic boys abuse? Did he piece together comments?
Was the “holiday” arranged through ‘friends’ that.. included links to the Paedo-in-place??
Was Maddie drugged?
The “its OK dear she won’t know she’ll be asleep” “they just want photos” excuse? … But it went wrong.
Was Gerry McCann’s/Celtic’s medicine chest the source of any drugs possibly used to dope kids groomed&raped by the boysclub paedo ring.?? Especially on ‘trips’.
Football coach Bob Higgins guilty of 45 counts of indecent assault
Former Southampton and Peterborough coach convicted of offences against 23 boys
23 May 2019
A former football coach who helped launch the careers of a string of household names has been found guilty of sexually abusing schoolboy players.
Bob Higgins, who worked with hundreds of youth players, was found guilty of 45 charges of indecent assault against teenage boys at Bournemouth crown court.
The jury found him not guilty of five counts of indecent assault and were unable to reach a verdict on the final count. He showed no emotion as the verdicts were read out and he was convicted of offences against 23 victims.
He was convicted at an earlier trial of an offence against one other victim. The judge, Peter Crabtree, discharged the jury and thanked them for their service. Higgins will be sentenced at a later date at Winchester crown court.
Higgins, who coached at Southampton FC and Peterborough United, was a predatory paedophile who used his reputation as a star-maker to abuse vulnerable boys.
He indecently assaulted them at training camps, at home when his wife and son were under the same roof, in his car, and during “soapy” massages after training.
Higgins, 66, denied the offences, claiming the allegations were false memories or lies. His mask slipped once when, while giving evidence, he conceded he may have become sexually aroused while massaging boys.
Complaints about Higgins were first made 30 years ago but, even though the police and football authorities knew of the serious concerns about him, he continued to work in the game until the Guardian exposed widespread football abuse in 2016.
It can now be revealed that:
• More than 100 former schoolboy players have said they were abused by Higgins. The most serious allegations involving boys as young as 11, and involving 24 youngsters, were put before the jury at Bournemouth crown court.
• Police believe there may be more victims who have not contacted them. They are still keen to hear from anyone else who was indecently assaulted by Higgins.
• Higgins kept letters, pictures and witness statements in his attic as “trophies” from boys he had abused.
• Detectives believe Higgins committed offences in Sweden during a youth football competition but he cannot be prosecuted there because of legal restrictions.
• Higgins had close links with another coach accused of sexual abuse against children, Kit Carson, who worked with Higgins at Peterborough. Carson died in a car crash on the morning his trial was due to begin in January.
• Famous names that came up in Higgins’s trial included the England internationals Alan Shearer and Dennis Wise. There is no suggestion they were victims.
An independent review into child sexual abuse in football is looking at what the Football Association and clubs knew about Higgins.
A spokesperson said: “Following the conviction of Bob Higgins … it will now be possible for investigations into what the clubs and the FA did or did not know about Higgins to be concluded.”
The senior investigating officer, DCI Dave Brown, of Hampshire police, said: “Higgins was a great coach. The boys would do anything for him and he exploited that position. He identified vulnerabilities of the boys he coached and used his position to groom them so he could fulfil his own sexual needs. Boys worshipped Higgins as a father figure. He was clever and manipulative, a typical predatory paedophile.”
Asked why Higgins had been able to carry on working with children after complaints were made, he said: “You have to look at what the DBS [disclosure and barring service] and checking processes were at that time. There are very different safeguarding processes now. The fact he would be a risk would be identified and it would be highly unlikely he would find himself in a position where he could continue to offend against young people.”
He described the victims as incredibly brave. “I hope it gives others who may be victims the confidence to come forward. We will treat them with dignity and respect. I’m sure there are more that haven’t come forward,” he said.
Many of the victims described Higgins as god-like, their mentor and their father figure. Several spoke of their inability to make a complaint against him earlier because they feared it would be the end of their dreams of a career in football.
The court heard Higgins was acquitted at a trial in the early 1990s of a series of indecent assaults, including against the former professional Dean Radford who waived his right to anonymity to give evidence as a witness in the current proceedings.
The public gallery was charged with emotion as the chairman of the jury announced Higgins was guilty of six charges in relation to the former Southampton trainee Billy Seymour who died in a car crash earlier this year. His evidence against Higgins was presented to the jury through videos he had given to police.
In a joint statement issued through the police, the victims in the Bournemouth case said: “When Bob Higgins returned to court eight weeks ago, he gave a clear message to us all with his continued refusal to accept responsibility for what he did to us as children. However, that message made us all stronger and more determined.
“The verdicts from the jury after hearing all of the evidence mean that Mr Higgins’ arrogance and lies have finally caught up with him. At last, after all these years, we can finally get a sense of closure and try to move on from this nightmare.
“On behalf of everybody who’s taken part in the trials, we would like to thank everyone involved in the case for having faith and belief in us.
“We would particularly like to thank the prosecution and investigation team who must have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours putting this jigsaw puzzle together.
“But, most of all, we must thank our loved ones, wives, girlfriends, sons, daughters, mums, dads, brothers, sisters and close friends who have supported us right through to the end. It must have been difficult for them also.”
Referring to Seymour, they concluded: “We did it Billy, love you our good friend and brother xxx”.
Claire Booth, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Many young boys dream of becoming a footballer and training for a prestigious team.
“Bob Higgins preyed on and abused young boys – some of who adored him – and in doing so tainted and shattered the dreams of many.
“Being scouted by such a talented, renowned coach was something no boy would have turned down. Sadly it meant growing up with this terrible secret, which for some was all-consuming.”
Paedophile Celtic Boys’ Club coaches Gerry King (far left), Jim Torbett (centre) and Frank Cairney (far right) and former kitman Jim McCafferty, front right, and the statement in the Celtic View in 1986 saying the abuse claims were scurrilous
Celtic FC cleared Boys’ Club bosses over ‘scurrilous’ abuse claims in 1986
Victims, families and lawyers call for action after Daily Record reveals statement printed in The Celtic View after a club investigation.
17 MAY 2019
Celtic FC investigated and cleared Celtic Boys’ Club “leaders” of wrongdoing after complaints in the 80s, the Record can reveal.
The club’s probe described abuse claims as “scurrilous” and said those “placed under a cloud” would go to court if necessary to make sure the stories “are buried once and for all”.
Concerns were voiced in the 80s about boys being taken out socially when no matches were scheduled, arriving home late, and being taken away to tournaments that did not exist.
But the club’s probe described abuse claims as “scurrilous” and said that those who had been “placed under a cloud” would go to court if necessary to make sure the stories “are buried once and for all”.
The Record can reveal Celtic FC were aware of claims surrounding the boys’ club as far back as 1986.
The Celtic View article confirms that the Celtic FC board thoroughly investigated claims of inappropriate behaviour at the Celtic Boys’ Club
On Tuesday, a former kitman for Celtic, Hibs and Falkirk was jailed for six years and nine months for sexually abusing young footballers over two decades.
Youth coach Jim McCafferty was revealed as a serial abuser more than two years ago following a confession when confronted by the Record.
McCafferty’s imprisonment comes in the wake of Celtic Boys’ Club predatory paedophiles Jim Torbett and Frank Cairney being jailed for sexual offences on boys spanning more than 20 years.
Torbett, 71, was jailed for six years in November for the systematic sexual abuse of boys from 1986 to 1994.
A third CBC official, Gerald King, 66, was convicted of a string of sexual offences against children at a school in Glasgow.
Earlier this year he was given a three-year probation order.
The revelation of the club’s 80s investigation appears to be at odds with Celtic FC’s present stance that the boys’ club is a totally separate organisation, and that it was first made aware of allegations of improper behaviour in the mid-90s.
Helene Gray, 70, the mum of Torbett victim Andrew Gray, said of the development: “This is horrendous and shocking.”
On Tuesday, a former kitman for Celtic, Hibs and Falkirk was jailed for six years and nine months for sexually abusing young footballers over two decades.
Youth coach Jim McCafferty was revealed as a serial abuser more than two years ago following a confession when confronted by the Record.
McCafferty’s imprisonment comes in the wake of Celtic Boys’ Club predatory paedophiles Jim Torbett and Frank Cairney being jailed for sexual offences on boys spanning more than 20 years.
Torbett, 71, was jailed for six years in November for the systematic sexual abuse of boys from 1986 to 1994.
A third CBC official, Gerald King, 66, was convicted of a string of sexual offences against children at a school in Glasgow.
Earlier this year he was given a three-year probation order.
The revelation of the club’s 80s investigation appears to be at odds with Celtic FC’s present stance that the boys’ club is a totally separate organisation, and that it was first made aware of allegations of improper behaviour in the mid-90s.
Helene Gray, 70, the mum of Torbett victim Andrew Gray, said of the development: “This is horrendous and shocking.”
Convicted paedophile Jim Torbett at a Celtic Boys’ Club event
Andrew bravely gave a statement before his tragic death aged 41 in an accident in Australia. The information helped convict the pervert in November.
Patrick McGuire, a partner with Thompsons Solicitors, who are representing the victims, said: “These new revelations uncovered by the Record go further than ever before in disproving the ridiculous assertion that the boys’ club and Celtic were separate organisations.
“The former directors of Celtic have got to be clear about what they thought they were investigating back in the mid-80s.
“The survivors my team represent deserve answers from the club about these investigations and they continue to be shocked and insulted that the board maintain that the boys’ club and Celtic FC are separate organisations.
“The survivors must receive an official apology from the club and be properly compensated for the terrible things that happened to them when, as children, they were under Celtic’s care.
“This is the morally right and decent thing to do but if Celtic continue to ignore us, as I have said before, we will see them in court.”
Kenny Campbell, another of Torbett’s victims – who waived his right to anonymity – said of our probe: “This makes me sick to the pit my stomach. It is a stunning development.”
Boys’ club general manager Frank Cairney, 83, was convicted in December last year and jailed for four years after sexually abusing eight boys.
He wrote in the Celtic View in December 1986 of his gratitude for the “tremendous support” he received from Celtic Park during the “recent difficult times”.
At the time of the 1986 investigation by the Celtic FC board, their then vice-chairman Kevin Kelly was also president of Celtic Boys’ Club.
He was also an employee of Torbett at his trophy business in Glasgow’s Shawlands.
At the boys’ club AGM in 1987 – just months after the allegations came to light – Kelly said that because of the way “true friends” had rallied round, the “criticism” of the boys’ club had made it stronger.
Torbett was previously jailed for two years in 1998 for abusing three former Celtic Boys’ Club players, including former Scotland international Alan Brazil, between 1967 and 1974.
At that trial, former Celtic photographer and boys’ club chairman Hugh Birt claimed Torbett was fired in 1974 after child abuse allegations arose.
But Torbett returned to the fold in the 80s.
Celtic FC’s investigation into the conduct of Celtic Boys’ Club “leaders” came after parents raised their fears.
The then boys’ club chairman Birt, who passed away five years ago, resigned because he believed the issue was not being dealt with properly.
The statement Celtic FC issued in Celtic View
Here is the statement Celtic FC issued in its own newspaper, the Celtic View, in December 1986, in response to claims in our sister paper the Sunday Mail.
The statement was reproduced the following month in the Celtic Boys’ Club magazine.
“A Sunday newspaper recently carried a story which cast a shadow over the Celtic Boys’ Club in general, and some of the leaders in particular.
“It also included a clear inference that the Celtic Football Club had not taken appropriate action with regard to the allegations contained in the article.
“In actual fact, the Celtic Board investigated the rumours and interviewed the men concerned in depth and could find nothing to substantiate the stories that were being circulated.
“During the course of the last 10 days, Celtic Football Club and the boys’ club have been in receipt of hundreds of letters and phone calls from boys and their parents, past and present, stating their complete support and backing of all involved with the boys’ club.
“It must be clearly emphasised that apart from this newspaper article, inspired by the former chairman of the boys’ club, not one single complaint has been received by any other person with a Celtic connection.
“The boys’ club leaders who have been placed under a cloud as a result of these rumours have instructed their lawyers to take the appropriate course of action and, if necessary, to go to a court of law to make sure these scurrilous stories are buried once and for all.”
In 1986, he said: “It appears the Celtic board want to look in the other direction in the hope the troubles will go away.”
But in an article published in the club magazine, the Celtic View, in December of that year, Celtic FC rubbished a story in the Record’s sister paper, the Sunday Mail, about the abuse.
It had listed complaints from parents about boys being kept out late, taken out socially when there was no game, and going to non-existent tournaments.
But the Celtic View stated: “In actual fact, the Celtic Board investigated the rumours and interviewed the men concerned in depth and could find nothing to substantiate the stories that were being circulated.
“The boys’ club leaders who have been placed under a cloud as a result of these rumours have instructed their lawyers to take the appropriate course of action, and if necessary to go to a court of law to make sure these scurrilous stories are buried once and for all.”
On the Celtic board at the time were chairman Jack McGinn, vice-chairman Kelly, Chris White, Tom Grant and Jimmy Farrell.
Helene revealed yesterday that the complaints in the 80s matched Torbett’s pattern of abuse when he preyed on Andrew.
She said : “This was exactly what Torbett did to Andrew. It is the first we have heard of Celtic holding an investigation as far back as that. To think it made Torbett’s position stronger is sickening.”
Kenny added: “I love Celtic. But people need to know the truth. For Celtic FC to claim they are separate from the boys’ club is total nonsense and this information uncovered by the Record shows that.”
Last night, Celtic FC made no comment on our revelations.
Following Torbett’s conviction last November, the club again claimed the boys’ club was not part of Celtic FC and did not refer to the investigation in the 80s.
It said: “Allegations regarding abuse at Celtic Boys’ Club first emerged in the 1990s. Although Celtic Football Club is an entirely separate organisation, we have always taken these allegations extremely seriously because of our historic contacts with Celtic Boys’ Club.”
A club source said yesterday: “It is not true to say that the investigation in 1986 is at odds with our statement released in November.
“That statement referred to the specific allegations against Torbett which led to his conviction in court. These allegations first emerged in the 1990s.”
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/celtic-fc-cleared-boys-club-16158020
Former Celtic kitman Jim McCafferty jailed after pleading guilty to sex offences
Police officer says McCafferty ‘used football to prey upon’ his victims
14 May 2019
Pervert youth football coach and kitman Jim McCafferty was sentenced to six years and nine months today after pleading guilty to a string of child sex offences stretching back 25 years.
McCafferty, 73, was involved in football in Scotland and Northern Ireland from the 1980s.
A total of 27 men who were coached by him took a claim against the former kitman and 10 claimants appeared on the lengthy indictment.
His crimes were all sexual and he was described as “physically intimidating” and overbearing.
Lord Beckett told Edinburgh High Court McCafferty that his actions had been “manipulative” and his offending had had a detrimental effect on his many victims.
McCafferty was initially arrested in Belfast
FA ‘covered up sex abuse of boys by coaches’
An alleged victim’s father claims football’s governing body has suppressed evidence of a paedophile ring
March 24 2019,
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fa-covered-up-sex-abuse-of-boys-by-coaches-v82m6vh87
Crewe claim they did not arrange for boys to stay with Barry Bennell
19 Mar 2019
• Crewe bring in lawyers used by Catholic church in abuse case
• Club say victims’ long silence means case should be thrown out
Ex-Celtic Boys Club coach jailed over abuse
Feb 7 2019
Frank Cairney is the third former Celtic Boys Club coach to be convicted
A former manager of Celtic Boys Club has been jailed for four years after being convicted of nine charges of sexually abusing young footballers.
Sentencing Frank Cairney, the sheriff told the 83-year-old former coach he was a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”.
During his trial the court heard that Cairney’s victims had suffered badly from the abuse, which dated back to the 1980s.
Sheriff Daniel Kelly praised the “courage” of the victims.
Cairney was acquitted of similar charges 20 years ago.
Following his conviction in December, a man who accused Cairney of abusing him in the early 1970s, said justice had finally caught up with the “evil paedophile”.
Both Jim Torbett (left) and Frank Cairney (right) have been convicted of abusing children at Celtic Boys Club
The man, whose identity is protected under the law, said Cairney had used his standing at Celtic FC to gain access to innocent young boys and abuse them in the most horrible way.
Some of the abuse took place in the dressing room at Celtic Park.
After sentencing he told BBC Scotland, Cairney had been given four years but his victims got a life sentence and they would take their experiences to the grave.
“When I saw him in court in December, he looked evil. I haven’t been able to get that image of him out of my head,” he said.
The man, who is in his late 50s, said he would wanted the authorities to ask if sentences handed down to men like Cairney were sufficient.
“The sentences have to be stricter so that we can protect our vulnerable,” he said.
‘Great respect’
Cairney is the third former Celtic Boys Club coach to be convicted of child sex abuse in recent months.
In November, Boys Club founder Jim Torbett was jailed for six years, while another coach, teacher Gerald King, was also convicted of abusing boys at a school.
After the conviction of Torbett, Celtic expressed “deep regret” for the victims but stressed the boys club was a separate entity.
The club made a similar statement on Thursday following the conviction of Cairney.
“Although Celtic Football Club is an entirely separate organisation to Celtic Boys’ Club, we wish to express our deep regret that these incidents took place, as well as our sympathy for the victims who suffered abuse,” it said.
“We are grateful for the courage of those who have come forward to report abuse and to give evidence after such a long period of time. We have great respect for them and their families as they continue to cope with the distressing effects of the abuse they suffered”.
The victim of Cairney the BBC spoke to had previously said that when he played for the Boys Club, they were regular visitors to Celtic Park and used to sweep the terraces there.
He said: “Celtic FC have been in denial of the association with the Boys Club. It’s appalling; please stop it.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-47157008
Dead football coach Michael ‘Kit’ Carson was ‘paedophile ringleader’
January 13 2019
An Irish football coach who died last week on the day his trial for sex abuse was due to begin was at the centre of a paedophile ring and may have abused hundreds of young boys during a 30-year career, according to one of his victims.
Michael “Kit” Carson, 75, was due in Peterborough Crown Court on Monday to face 12 counts of indecent assault and one of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, but was killed when his car hit a tree between Cambridge and Newmarket in an act that may have been deliberate. The car was heading away from Peterborough.
David Lean 💜 @DavidLeanLeano
Is the reason police DID NOT act on the names of Victims that Barry Bennell they already given them in 1998 when I came forward in 2013 because they knew the true scale of this & left the cork firmly in the bottle ? My case was then dropped Maybe they thought I would go away ?
Barry Bennell: Police missed chance to snare paedophile after admitting abuse in 1998
EXCLUSIVE: The footie coach owned up in a jail interview to the crimes against nine boys – but officers failed to contact the victims
12 Jan 2019
Paedophile football coach Barry Bennell was allowed to walk free after police failed to contact nine boys he admitted abusing in a 1998 jail interview.
The fiend is expected to die behind bars after getting 30 years last February for a sickening catalogue of crimes.
But evidence that victim David Lean gave the Sunday People suggests he should have got a lengthy term sooner.
UK Police began probing Bennell, 65, in 1994 after he was jailed for child sex crimes in the US.
Detectives given the names of nine alleged victims in 1997 said they traced those they could but none wanted to make complaints.
Bennell was jailed again in 1998 for abusing six lads.
After requesting an interview in jail the same year, he confessed to attacks on the other nine.
But police have admitted they did not “revisit” the victims.
And when the case was sent to the CPS without checking if any would be willing to testify, it was decided no further action be taken.
Bennell was released six years later and remained free until 2015, when he was jailed for abusing former Preston North End defender David.
David, 12 when he suffered his ordeal, said: “It’s sickening. Now I’m left wondering if he could have got a much longer sentence much earlier.
“How do we know he didn’t attack more kids after he was released?”
Bennell victim Ian Ackley, 50, who spoke out in 1997, said of the police admission: “It’s a huge injustice and an insult to the victims. These boys could and should have been approached and given the opportunity to pursue this.
“Are you telling me if a murderer confessed to another murder, police wouldn’t follow it up? It’s their job.
When David went to police in 2013, he was originally told Bennell would not be charged as he was the only new victim and he had already been jailed for similar crimes.
He challenged the decision and Bennell was finally charged.
But he only learned of the 1998 confession after the 2018 trial.
Cheshire Police apologised last year after admitting contacting the boys would have helped his case.
David said: “I was stunned and angry. I went through two years of hell trying to get the police to charge Bennell.
“I could have been spared this if they’d just spoken to the boys.”
David, of Preston, Lancs, met Bennell in 1979 at Butlin’s in Pwlleli, North Wales.
He said: “I was besotted with football. He told me I was a star of the future and he had links to Man City.”
Parents Margaret and Martin let him stay with Bennell for a football course in Macclesfield, Cheshire, that year.
David, a dad of two, said: “Bennell didn’t leave me alone. He was pulling me into him, making me massage his groin. Then we went to bed and it got really weird.”
Bennell was eventually convicted of four attacks over two nights.
At the time David was left feeling it was his fault – especially when Bennell turned up unannounced at his home.
He said: “My mum told me to take him upstairs and show him my trophies. He wasn’t aggressive.
“He said, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell what you did to me.’ I blamed myself and thought I was gay. I didn’t think I could tell anyone. He’d been my hero.”
David didn’t tell of his abuse, even when a 1997 documentary unmasked Bennell.
He said: “Mum confronted me after the programme and I told her nothing happened.
“She said, ‘Thank God, I’m not sure I’d have been able to cope.’ I promised myself I wouldn’t disclose while she was alive. I have to live with the fact almost all of Bennell’s victims were abused after me. There may be over 100 I could have stopped.”
When Margaret died of cancer in 2013 David went to police without even telling his wife Teresa. He said: “Telling officers was emotional but it was when I got back to my car it hit me. I sobbed.”
He then confided in his family but was dismayed to get a letter saying it was not in the public interest to prosecute.
His complaint sparked a case that changed guidance on historic child sex crimes.
A panel suggested prosecutors reconsider and Bennell was charged in 2014, pleading guilty the day of his Chester crown court trial in May 2015.
He got two years and the football abuse scandal erupted the next year .
Stars speaking out on their ordeals included ex-Crewe Alexandra player Andy Woodward.
David was given this certificate from Bennell at a Butlins soccer coaching scheme
Other players, including Manchester City youth star Gary Cliffe, had read about David’s case and told police their stories. Bennell was convicted of abusing 12 victims last February.
Gary, 48, got in touch with David to hail him as an “inspiration”.
David, who works for amateur side AFC Fylde, contacted police after last year’s trial and was finally told of the confession.
When he demanded answers, officers confirmed a decision was made not to contact the boys.
David was told: “Those who were ‘admitted’ to had not been revisited after that interview… whether or not to do so was an individual senior investigating officer decision.”
The interview transcript was stored but an officer probing David’s case “did not appreciate its relevance”.
Cheshire Police accepted “this material was in its possession and these boys could and should have been contacted in 2013”.
David, training as a counsellor to help other abuse victims, said: “I fear there are a lot of people who have been abused by Bennell who will not get justice. And I can’t help but wonder if he could have got a 30-year sentence much earlier.
“Instead, he was free while people like me lived with the hell of what he did to us.”
Kit Carson, ex-football coach accused of abuse, dies in traffic collision
Seventy-five-year-old due to stand trial accused of sexual abuse of 11 boys over 30 years
Jan 8 2019
A youth football coach and scout credited with helping launch the careers of several professional players has died in a car crash on the first day of his trial for sexual offences against 11 boys.
Kit Carson, 75, had been due to stand trial at Peterborough crown court in Cambridgeshire on 12 counts of indecent assault and one of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity. The offences were alleged to have happened between 1978, when Carson was 35, and 2009.
Carson’s trial was due to begin on Monday morning but the prosecution asked for proceedings to be adjourned for 24 hours.
On Tuesday, Jeremy Benson, prosecuting, told the court Carson had died on Monday morning at 9.44am – 16 minutes before the case was listed to begin.
Benson said no other vehicle was involved in the incident and an investigation was being carried out. The prosecutor said Carson’s wife, Pauline, identified her husband’s body on Monday afternoon. The case was formally discontinued.
Police said the crash took place at Bottisham, near Cambridge, which is about 40 miles from the court building.
Carson, whose full name was Michael Sean Carson, was arrested in Cambridge in January 2017 and charged in March 2018.
One theory police were investigating to explain why he was so far from court was that he was confused over the start date of his trial.
A Cambridgeshire police spokesman said: “Police have identified a man who died following a single-vehicle crash on the A1303 at Bottisham yesterday morning (7 January).
“Michael Carson, 75, of Cambridge, was driving his red Mazda 3 at about 9.45am when it left the road and crashed into a tree. Emergency services attempted to save Mr Carson’s life but he was declared dead at the scene a short time later.
“No other vehicle or person was involved in the collision. Mr Carson was due to stand trial at Peterborough crown court, beginning yesterday, on multiple sexual assault charges. The victims have been informed and efforts are being made to contact all the witnesses.
“Anyone who saw the collision or has dash cam footage should call 101, quoting incident 100 of 7 January.”
Carson was the academy director at Peterborough United football club from 1993 until 2001 and a number of players he coached there went on to have careers in the Premier League.
The majority of the alleged indecent assault offences are said to have taken place between 1992 and 2000.
Before working at Peterborough, Carson was at Norwich City from 1983 until 1993, and had connections with other junior teams. On his LinkedIn page, he described himself as a football consultant and scout for a Finnish club. Carson left Peterborough to become head of talent development at Cambridge United in 2001 and remained there until 2005.
The first two alleged indecent assaults are said to have taken place between September 1978 and September 1980.
According to the particulars of the offences, the first alleged indecent assault happened at a hotel in the north of England. A further eight allegedly took place in or around Peterborough.
The incitement offence allegedly happened between February 2008 and February 2009 in Cambridge.
Carson had denied the offences.
Bail conditions had included Carson being barred from coaching children in the UK or travelling abroad to coach young people, and from involvement in scouting under-18s.
Gerald King: Ex-Celtic Boys’ chairman spared jail after being found guilty of child sex abuse
Jan 7 2019
A FORMER Celtic Boys’ Club chairman convicted of sexually abusing four boys and a girl while he was employed as a teacher has been spared jail.
Gerald King, 66, taught and coached football at a primary school in the north of Glasgow during the 1980s.
One man, now 43, told how King exposed himself to him when he was getting changed before a football game and told prosecutor Adele Macdonald: “I was really embarrassed and uncomfortable”.
He told the jury: “I felt as though it was something I couldn’t escape from.”
King’s conviction last month came only weeks after Celtic Boys’ Club founder Jim Torbett was jailed for a second time for abusing three boys.
A former manager of the boys’ club, Frank Cairney, 83, was found guilty the following week at Hamilton Sheriff Court of abusing teenagers between 1965 and 1986.
After his trial at Glasgow Sheriff Court, King was convicted of five charges of using lewd and libidinous practises towards the five victims between August 1984 and April 1989.
He was also found guilty of taking indecent pictures of children in February 1987.
Today, shamed King – who was also a coach at Celtic Boys’ Club – was given a three-year probation order.
He will be supervised throughout his time on the order and must carry out 240 hours unpaid work. King will also be on the sex offenders’ register for five years.
King’s victims were between nine and 13-years-old at the time.
In evidence, he admitted taking two pictures, one of four boys in a shower with no clothes on which was later printed in the school magazine with ‘censored’ over their private parts.
He also said he took a second picture of one of the boys with no clothes on, but claimed both were entirely innocent.
Sick King denied all of the charges he faced.
Former Norwich City youth coach to stand trial over child sex abuse charges
02 January 2019
Former youth football coach and scout Michael “Kit” Carson at Cambridge Magistrates’ Court. PIC: Joe Giddens/PA Images
A former Norwich City youth coach is to go on trial this month having been charged with the sexual abuse of 11 boys under the age of 16.
The trial of Michael “Kit” Carson, 75, is due to begin on Monday (January 7) at Peterborough Crown Court.
He has been charged with 12 counts of indecent assault and one of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.
The offences are alleged to have happened between 1978 and 2009 and involve 11 victims, all boys under the age of 16.
Carson, of St Bartholomew’s Court, Riverside, Cambridge, has denied all charges.
The former coach was arrested as part of the investigation into historical child sex abuse in football.
He worked at Norwich as a youth coach between 1983 and 1993, before moving to Peterborough to run their youth academy until 2001.
He then spent five years at Cambridge as their head of talent development but more recently worked at non-league Histon in Cambridgeshire.
Frank Cairney branded ‘evil paedophile’ by victim who says he was abused in Celtic Park dressing room
Cairney, 83, was today convicted of sexually abusing a string of youngsters
14 dec 2018
FRANK Cairney has been branded an “evil paedophile” by one of his victims who says he was abused by the beast in a dressing room at Celtic Park.
Cairney, 83, was today convicted of sexually abusing a string of youngsters
The former coach was found guilty of abusing eight boys while running St Columba’s Boys Guild in Viewpark, Lanarkshire, and the under-16s team at Celtic Boys Club.
Cairney denied nine charges of historic sexual abuse between 1965 and 1986, branding the allegations “ludicrous”.
But a jury took under two hours to convict him of all charges at Hamilton Sheriff Court.
Late Celtic hero John Doyle ‘reported abuse claims about Frank Cairney’
After the verdict, one abuse survivor said: “Finally justice has caught up with Frank Cairney who as everyone now knows is an evil paedophile.
“He used his high standing at Celtic FC though his work with the boys clubs to gain access to innocent young boys like myself and abuse them in the most horrible way.
“Some of this abuse was carried out within the Celtic Park dressing room as well as in his car. I’m glad Cairney will now pay for his crimes and this brings a small amount of closure to myself and other victims.”
The Scottish Sun understands the abuse relates to Frank Cairney forcing boys to strip naked in the dressing rooms of Celtic Park before whipping them with heavy, wet towels leaving their bodies marked.
It’s also understood he submerged naked boys in ice cold metal baths while he stood leering over them.
Cairney joined Celtic Boys Club in 1971 after he was approached to run the side by Hoops legend Jock Stein.
But he used the role to prey on and molest young players, including incidents in a church hall and at Celtic’s Barrowfield training ground.
Former Celtic Boys Club boss found guilty of sex abuse
5 December 2018
Gerald King coached football at a primary school in the north of Glasgow during the 1980s
A former Celtic Boys Club chairman has been convicted of sexually abusing four boys and a girl in the 1980s.
Gerald King, 66, was coaching football at a primary school in the north of Glasgow when he carried out the crimes.
King was convicted of five charges of using lewd and libidinous practises towards the five victims between August 1984 and April 1989.
The case comes just weeks after Celtic Boys Club founder Jim Torbett was jailed for abusing three boys.
After his trial at Glasgow Sheriff Court, King was told by sheriff Johanna Johnston QC: “You have been convicted of serious sexual offences against pupils when you were in a position of trust as a teacher and football coach.”
One victim, now a 43-year-old man, told how King exposed himself to him when he was getting changed before a football game.
He told prosecutor Adele Macdonald: “I was really embarrassed and uncomfortable”.
He told the jury: “I felt as though it was something I couldn’t escape from. ”
Indecent pictures
He was also found guilty of taking indecent pictures of children in February 1987.
King’s victims were between nine and 13 years old at the time.
In evidence he admitted taking two pictures, one of four boys in a shower with no clothes on which was later printed in the school magazine with ‘censored’ over their private parts.
He also said he took a second picture of one of the boys with no clothes on, but claimed both were entirely innocent.
King had denied the charges.
Another victim, now 41, described King stripping off in front of him before a football game.
Miss Macdonald asked: “How did you feel when you were standing there and he was in front of you in the same room naked?”
He answered: “Embarrassed.”
Deferred sentence
Sheriff Johnston deferred sentence until next year and continued King’s bail.
Defence counsel Gavin Anderson will give defence mitigation then.
King had worked at Torbett’s company, the Trophy Centre, but previously denied being close to him.
During his trial, Torbett named King as one of the coaches at the boys club.
Torbett was first put behind bars for two years in 1998 for abusing three former players.
Torbett was said to have been sacked from the club in 1974 when allegations surfaced against him, but was later welcomed back in 1980 until 1996.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-46460307
Jim Torbett victims’ lawyer has ‘evidence’ Celtic knew about child abuse before the 90s
Patrick McGuire who is representing 10 former Celtic Boys’ Club players has questioned Celtic’s claims.
9 NOV 2018
A lawyer representing victims of pervert Celtic Boys’ Club Jim Torbett says he has evidence officials knew about the abuse before the 90s.
Patrick McGuire, whose Glasgow firm are representing 10 former Celtic Boys’ Club players, questioned Celtic FC’s claims about when they learned of the allegations.
He said: “When was it that Celtic Football Club knew, or ought to have known, about what was going on and when should that club have taken action? Was it in the 90s? I have evidence to the contrary.”
Torbett was jailed for six years on Monday for sexually abusing three boys over an eight-year period.
He was previously jailed for abusing boys in 1998.
The 71-year-old was said to have been booted out of the boys’ club in 1974 by then Celtic boss Jock Stein.
But he was allowed back after Stein left in 1980.
They expressed “deep regret” over Torbett’s crimes but have repeatedly insisted the club is a separate entity from the boys’ club.
But McGuire added: “We are asking Celtic, in their own right, for their own past wrongs, to do the right thing.”
An abuse victim’s sister said the club were trying to dodge responsibility over Torbett.
Andrew Gray gave a statement to police about his ordeal at the hands of Torbett but tragically died last year in a swimming pool accident in Australia, aged 41.
Andrew Gray who was abused by Jim Torbett when he played for Celtic Boys’ Club
His sibling Michelle, 43, said: “We have yet to receive as much as a message of condolence in respect of Andrew’s death, never mind the abuse he suffered. To say that they were two separate clubs is nonsense.
“If that was the case, then why did Andrew play at Parkhead and have the contact that he did with the board and the first team players?”
The club said they had taken steps to develop a new code of conduct and procedures to protect young people.
Celtic Boys Club founder Jim Torbett guilty of abusing boys
5 Nov 2018
Celtic Boys Club founder Jim Torbett has been jailed for six years after being convicted of sexually abusing three boys over an eight-year period.
Torbett, 71, was found guilty after a trial at the High Court in Glasgow. He had denied the charges.
Two victims had been in his under-14s football teams, while the third was abused by Torbett at the age of five.
Lord Beckett told Torbett: “Yours is some of the most corrupting behaviour I have ever heard of in these courts.”
He added: “Your depraved conduct towards innocent children has blighted their lives.”
The judge told Torbett that Celtic Boys Club had given opportunities to hundreds of aspiring young footballers.
But he added: “You used the club as a front for child sexual abuse.”
There were tears in the public gallery as the verdict was announced, and emotional scenes in the foyer of the court as those affected by the case embraced each other.
Jurors had heard that Torbett, of Kelvindale, Glasgow, targeted the schoolboys between August 1986 and August 1994.
His victims included youth players Kenny Campbell and Andrew Gray, who had waived their right to anonymity.
Mr Gray died last year, but statements he gave to police before his death were read out during the trial.
The third victim said he had been abused as a five-year-old when he visited the Trophy Centre in Glasgow, which was owned by Torbett.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-46098908
Ex-football coach Jim Torbett on trial accused of historic sex abuse of four young boys in Glasgow
Torbett, 71, denies a total of nine offences of sexually abuse allegedly committed between August 1985 and August 1994
22 Oct 2018
A MAN went on trial today accused of historic sexual abuse of four young boys.
James Torbett, 71, from Glasgow, denies a total of nine offences of sexually abuse allegedly committed between August 1985 and August 1994.
Defence QC Tony Graham lodged a special defence of alibi in relation to a charge alleged to have taken place between June 1985 and June 1986.
Torbett is alleged to have first sexually abused the boys when they were aged four, 12, 12, and 13.
The offences are alleged to have taken place in a number of locations including Barrowfield Football Ground in Glasgow’s London Road, at Torbett’s home, a dormitory in France as well as training facilities in Glasgow’s west end and factory premises at The Trophy Centre in Pollokshaws, Glasgow.
Prosecutor Sheena Fraser said: “The trial is set down for 10 days, but it may be less than that.”
No evidence has been heard yet.
The trial before judge Lord Beckett continues.
FA sex abuse inquiry: Delay in independent review
26 Sept 2108
The independent review into child sex abuse allegations in football has been delayed indefinitely because of a pending retrial and further allegations in the Barry Bennell case.
The scandal has been described as one of the biggest crises in the history of the Football Association.
“Due to the ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions it has not been possible for all those who want to speak to the review to be able to do so,” said Clive Sheldon QC, who is leading the investigation.
“Whilst I had hoped and expected to complete my review this autumn, I believe this extension will ensure many more individuals who want to engage with the review will be able to do so.
“It is essential that the review is as comprehensive as possible.”
It is not known how long the delay will be as it is dependent on the criminal matters being resolved.
In February, Bennell was sentenced to 31 years in prison for abusing 12 boys, seven of whom were linked to Crewe Alexandra.
Another coach, Bob Higgins, was found guilty in July of indecently assaulting a young trainee.
He was found not guilty of another count of the same offence. The jury in his case did not reach verdicts on 48 other counts of the same charge and was dismissed.
The prosecution said it would seek a retrial. Higgins denied all the charges involving 24 complainants, most of whom were Southampton and Peterborough trainees.
Sheldon was asked by the FA in 2016 to look into historical sexual abuse in the sport following a series of allegations by former players.
The review is looking into what the FA and clubs knew and did about allegations of child sexual abuse between 1970 and 2005.
Sheldon has been in “close and constant co-operation” with Operation Hydrant – the police operation looking into the issue – and had hoped to submit his final report at the end of September.
“However, the retrial of Bob Higgins, and the fact that there is an ongoing investigation into allegations against Barry Bennell, has required Mr Sheldon QC to review this position,” police said.
A statement added that Sheldon had “decided that he should not finalise his review until he has had the opportunity to speak to more individuals associated with the re-trial of Bob Higgins and the outcome into the police investigation into allegations against Barry Bennell, and to receive and analyse any other information about abuse in football that may emerge over the coming months”.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/45653117
Jailed football coach Barry Bennell may face further abuse charges
6 Sept 2018
- Police get go-ahead to put together a case for CPS
- Trial judge questioned merits of more criminal proceedings
Barry Bennell, the former football coach who is serving a 30-year prison sentence as an “industrial-scale child molester”, is facing the possibility of more criminal proceedings for the sexual abuse of players from the junior set-ups of Manchester City and Crewe Alexandra.
Detectives investigating Bennell’s crimes are putting together a case for the Crown Prosecution Service with a view to imposing charges relating to some of the alleged victims who are still waiting to hear whether their complaints will go to court. As of January, 86 cases were outstanding, with at least 97 people – though possibly more now – reporting Bennell on the back of the interview Andy Woodward, the former Crewe footballer, gave to the Guardian in November 2016, detailing the years of abuse he suffered in the club’s youth system.
There’s no doubt a paedophile ring was operating at Celtic at this time. The cover up from the media has been shameful.
When’s the rest of the ring up.
https://twitter.com/PA/status/1028958268520054784
Ex Celtic youth coach Jim McCafferty, 72, jailed for three years and nine months after pleading guilty to eight counts of sexual assault
13 Aug 2018
McCafferty, formerly of Raby Street in Belfast, will serve half the sentence in custody and the remaining half on licence
A former Celtic Football Club youth coach has been jailed for three years and nine months after admitting eight counts of sexual assault.
Jim McCafferty, 72, initially pleaded not guilty to a series of sexual offences against the same boy over a three-year period before December 2015, but changed his plea to guilty on the morning his trial began at Belfast Crown Court in May 2018.
During sentencing, Judge Patricia Smyth told McCafferty that what he had considered “a bit of fun” had had a significant impact on his victim.
McCafferty, formerly of Raby Street in Belfast, will serve half of the sentence in custody and the remaining half on licence.
The offences took place over a three-year period from December 2012 to December 2015 when McCafferty was aged from 66 to 68 and his victim was aged between 14 and 16.
Judge Smyth said: “You abused trust placed in you by his family… assaulting him in your home and his home. The impact on your victim and his family has been significant.
“There are other factors in the victim’s life that had rendered him vulnerable.”
Judge Smyth also told the court that McCafferty had only apologised to his victim because he had been advised to and said he continued to regard his behaviour as having been “a bit of fun for the victim”.
McCafferty, who lived in Glasgow before moving to Northern Ireland in recent years, will remain on the sexual offenders register for an “indefinite period” and has been banned from working with children in any capacity.
FA sex abuse inquiry finds no evidence of conspiracy or cover-up
26 July 2018
The man leading an investigation into historical sex abuse for the
Football Association has found no evidence of an institutionalised conspiracy, the BBC understands.
Clive Sheldon QC began his independent inquiry in 2016 following a series of allegations by former players.
He hopes to submit his final report at the end of September, and it is now unlikely he will conclude there was organised abuse or a cover-up of the kind alleged in other institutions like the Church of England.
However, Sheldon is still expected to find that there were failings by both individuals and clubs, and next month he will write to those he intends to comment on, giving them a chance to defend themselves.
The legal process of giving criticised witnesses the right to respond – known as ‘Maxwellisation’ – is expected to last around a month.
An inquiry spokesman said: “Over the summer the review team will be writing to institutions and individuals to provide them with an opportunity to respond to comments Clive Sheldon QC may make about them in his final report to the FA board.
“The review team are expecting to send those letters out shortly and will expect to hear back within weeks.”
It is thought around 12 clubs will form the basis of Sheldon’s findings, likely to include the likes of Crewe Alexandra, Manchester City, Chelsea and Aston Villa.
All the clubs from whom he requested a ‘structured report’ into how they handled allegations of abuse have now cooperated with the inquiry.
In March, Crewe said they would scrap plans for their own independent review into abuse by former coach Barry Bennell.
In February, Bennell was sentenced to 31 years in prison for abusing 12 boys, seven of whom were linked to the Cheshire club.
So far Sheldon has met 35 victims, and reviewed the testimony of more than 100 individuals.
Investigators have sifted through 13,000 documents in the FA archives – adding up to 1.3 million pages – as part of their search for data relating to safeguarding procedures and child protection cases.
Some 500 case management files – not all relating to child abuse – are thought to contain relevant information.
The inquiry team has also had access to documents held in the archives of the Premier League and the English Football League.
On Thursday the chief executive of the Scottish FA apologised for the abuse young players suffered in the past.
Ian Maxwell was responding to an 18-month investigation which found child protection policies are “not fit for purpose” and must change to prevent future cases of abuse.
The most recent police figures from March showed 849 alleged victims had come forward since former Crewe player Andy Woodward first spoke to the Guardian newspaper and the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme about the abuse he suffered.
Operation Hydrant, the specialist police unit in charge of the operation, has identified 300 suspects and a number of court cases involving professional clubs are under way.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/44973658
Martin Walkerdine@mwalkerdine
FA sex abuse inquiry finds no evidence of conspiracy or cover-up ( Do people believe this ? )
Ex-football coach faces retrial over indecent assault charges
23 July 2018
Former football coach Bob Higgins is to face a retrial after a jury found him guilty of one count of indecent assault and not guilty of another but failed to reach verdicts on the remaining 48 charges.
The 65-year-old, from Southampton, Hampshire, was convicted of the single charge by the jurors following an eight-week trial at Winchester Crown Court.
Higgins was found guilty of indecently assaulting complainant M, one of 24 alleged victims, in his car. He was cleared of an alleged assault on complainant G during a training session.
Judge Jonathan Fuller QC thanked the jurors for their service and told them: “I am going to discharge you from giving verdicts on the remaining counts.
“Thank you very much for the efforts and hard work you have put into this case over the last eight weeks.”
Adam Feest QC, prosecuting, told the court that a retrial is likely to be held on the remaining counts in February 2019.
Higgins, who ran the schoolboy coaching programmes for Southampton Football Club and Peterborough United, was accused during the trial of 50 counts of indecent assault against 24 complainants dating between 1971 and 1996.
The defendant was released on conditional bail.
Bob Higgins trial: Coach denies using gifts to groom boys
10 July 2018
A former football coach has denied using gifts and threats to “manipulate and groom” trainees in order to sexually abuse them.
Bob Higgins, 65, told a jury he was never alone with any youth player at Southampton or Peterborough United over the course of nearly two decades.
Under cross-examination, he denied putting trainees “under his spell”.
At Winchester Crown Court, Mr Higgins denies 50 counts of indecent assault against boys between 1971 and 1996.
Most of the 24 alleged victims are former youth players at the two clubs.
Prosecutor Adam Feest QC told the court the defendant was a “manipulative person as far as… trainees are concerned”.
‘Second dad’
He threatened one alleged victim with the police and gave another a piece of football kit to gain his affection, Mr Feest said.
The defendant denied the suggestions.
He accepted though his relationship with boys could be “intense, in a football way”.
“You would know which boy’s father was away, which boy came from a troubled background,” Mr Feest said.
Mr Higgins said some called him “second dad” because “that was how they felt”, but he denied selecting boys to abuse.
Mr Feest suggested the ex-coach had “supreme influence” over “teenagers desperate to be professionals” through his power to recommend them for contracts.
Asked about soap-water massages given to trainees, Mr Higgins said he learned the technique from a TV programme about former England and Leeds United manager Don Revie.
‘Lot of soap’
“Did you ever stop to think, ‘Is it appropriate for me to be massaging a young naked boy in this way?’,” Mr Feest asked.
“No,” Mr Higgins replied.
“You accept there was a risk of touching a boy in an intimate place?” the prosecutor continued.
“I might have brushed them. There was a lot of soap on the player,” Mr Higgins said.
The trial continues.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-44783789
Youth coach George Ormond guilty of sexually abusing boys
3 July 2018
A youth football coach who went on to work for Newcastle United has been convicted of a string of sex abuse offences spanning 25 years.
George Ormond “used his position of power” to abuse 18 boys and young men between 1973 and 1998, Newcastle Crown Court heard.
The 62-year-old had denied all charges but was convicted of 35 charges of indecent assault and one of indecency.
At the end of the six-week trial, he was cleared of two further charges.
Ormond will be sentenced on Wednesday.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-44681731
James Torbett: Glasgow pensioner on trial accused of sexually abusing boys at football ground
26 June 2018
A pensioner has gone on trial accused of sexually abusing boys at a football ground and training facility.
James Torbett, known as Jim, faces 12 charges of abusing six boys, aged from four to 17 on the dates in question, one of whom has since died.
The alleged abuse spans from 1970 to 1994 and is said to have taken place at various locations including Barrowfield Football Ground in London Road and Scotstoun Football Training Facility, both Glasgow.
Abuse is also alleged to have occured at a a further football training facility in Bristol, school premises in Scotland, at a dormitories in France and Belgium, at factory premises in Shawbridge Street in Glasgow, at locations in Blackpool and London and in motor vehicles.
The 71-year-old from Glasgow denies all the charges against him, which include inducing boys to perform sexual acts and placing money in the mouth of one alleged victim.
Torbett is also accused of grabbing hold of the private parts of a boy aged between four and six and threatening him, and on another occasion making him perform oral sex.
He is further accused of removing the clothes and underwear of a boy aged 11 or 12 at Barrowfield Football Ground and watching him and two other boys enter the showers.
He has lodged a defence of abili for one charge, of sexually abusing the same boy in a vehicle on the M8 motorway in Glasgow between dates in 1985 and 1986, claiming to have been in New York on that occasion.
The trial at the High Court in Glasgow heard agreed evidence that the police seized mobile phones from Torbett and one alleged victim in May last year, which have now been forensically examined.
The court also heard the alleged victim who has since died provided six statements to the police.
The trial, before Judge Tom Hughes, continues today.
Barry Bennell survivors welcome rejection of appeal against jail term
High court judges turn down appeal by former football coach who abused young players
20 June 2018
Truthseeker@thewakeupcall09
Convicted paedophile James ‘Jim’ Torbett is at the Glasgow High Court on Monday 25th of June 2018 – Dedicated Floating Trial
‘Trusted’ Newcastle United football coach abused 19 children over 24 years – enforcing ‘no pants’ rule on young players and telling one boy ‘you want to play football, this is what happens’, court hears
- George Ormond accused of 29 child sexual offences between 1973 and 1998
A ‘trusted’ youth football coach at Newcastle United is accused of abusing 19 children over a 24-year-period, enforcing a ‘no underpants’ rule at training and telling the youngsters they wouldn’t be believed if they told anyone.
George Ormond, 61, is accused of 29 historic child sex offences and abusing his position of power between 1973 and 1998.
He denies the charges and faces trial by jury at Newcastle Crown Court.
The court heard he told young players: ‘You want to play football, you want to play for me, this is what happens. Tell anybody, they won’t believe you, I am trusted more than you.’
Ormond denies sexually assaulting young boys throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s, , with 19 former youngsters under his care making accusations against him in a trial that will last six weeks.
The court heard Ormond helped to run a successful boys’ team in the Newcastle area and progressed to Newcastle United’s youth set-up in the 1990s.
Murdering paedophile Brian Beattie – protected:
http://www.thecelticwiki.com/page/The+Murder+of+Lawrence+Haggart%2C+1996
Kitman Jim McCafferty’s sordid sex abuse allegations go back 20 years
The coach and kitman has been linked to sex abuse as far back as two decades ago andwas a potential suspect in the brutal murder of a teenager footballer.
7 DEC 2016
Jim McCafferty was considered by police as potential Lawrence Haggart murder suspect
Jim McCafferty has never been convicted for his crimes against boys.
But the coach and kitman was linked to sex abuse as far back as 20 years ago.
In 1996, the Record revealed he quit his role as kitman at Celtic over mysterious “allegations”.
Then in 2005, police papers revealed he’d been considered a potential suspect in the hammer murder of Hoops starlet Lawrence Haggart.
McCafferty worked at a number of youth football clubs and junior sides before he began scouting for Celtic in the late 80s.
During that time, he acquired a number of talented young players from Northern Ireland for the Hoops.
He later became the club’s kitman in 1994 and was involved in their youth side in 1995-6.
But allegations into teen sex abuse led to his resignation from the club and flight to Ireland. It came in the wake of the Celtic Boys Club scandal when former player Alan Brazil lifted the lid on sex abuse decades earlier.
Weeks after the 1996 story about McCafferty emerged, Celtic youth star Lawrence, 14, was murdered and set alight in his own home. Convicted paedophile Brian Beattie was later convicted of the crime.
McCafferty eventually returned from Ireland and joined Hibs as kitman. He later joined Falkirk in the same role.
But sister paper the Sunday Mail revealed McCafferty quit the Bairns after the claims caught up with him.
Secret police documents also showed he was once a potential suspect in Lawrence’s murder.
The report said McCafferty was a regular visitor to the Haggart home in Larbert, Stirlingshire, and had phoned the house on the day of the murder.
But police were criticised for their mishandling of the case.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/jim-mccaffertys-sordid-past-goes-9406113
Truthseeker@thewakeupcall09
COPS FRAME SHAME; Secret police report slams murder squad officers who tried to fit up 12-year-old for the death of his brother.
A SENIOR police officer has claimed detectives faked diaries and planted evidence in a bid to frame a 12-year-old for the murder of his older brother.
A secret police report released last week brands the murder squad who investigated the death of 14-year-old Lawrence Haggart criminal and incompetent.
The report by James Mackay, the then assistant chief constable of Tayside Police, shows officers became so obsessed with nailing Lawrence’s young brother Dennis for the crime that they ignored the true killer – serial paedophile Brian Beattie.
Lawrence was battered in his own home as he lay sleeping on the sofa and then set on fire by Beattie.
The report says detectives found a hammer and petrol in Beattie’s van – but accepted his alibi that he had been out cruising for gay sex in Edinburgh.
The Mackay report reveals how police# Faked entries in an official diary of the murder inquiry at a later date.
- Failed to carry out basic searches of paedophile killer Brian Beattie’s criminal record.
- Contaminated the crime scene and destroyed evidence.
- ‘Discovered’ a hammer sitting in the Haggart family’s kitchen – after their home had already been searched NINE times.
- Did not even consider a sexual motive for the murder.
- Lost a possible murder weapon and ignored another in the killer’s car.
The shocking report was ordered after claims police attempted to frame Lawrence’s brother Dennis for the killing It has remained secret for seven years but was released last week to Lawrence’s dad Larry under new Freedom of Information rules.
Lawrence was battered by killer Brian Beattie who had simply walked in to the family home in Larbert, Stirlingshire.
But police wrongly suspected Lawrence’s brother Dennis.
In his report Mackay includes the damning statement: ‘Clearly there were matters of a disciplinary nature and also aspects of the murder investigation which may have been considered criminal.’
The Mackay report reveals a catalogue of astonishing incompetence by the murder team led by Detective Superintendent Jim Winning and Inspector John Bunyan.
They spent almost 18 months trying to pin the murder on Dennis and his older brother John, then 16. They did question Beattie – but ignored his track record for attacking boys in their homes.
A new team, led by Superintendent Joe Holden, was appointed and they nailed Beattie who is now serving a minimum of 15 years. Winning retired through ill-health while Bunyan had his knuckles rapped.
The report suggests police planted a potential murder weapon – a hammer – in the Haggart house to fit in with their theory that the killer was his brother.
The report says: ‘On 22 March 1996, two officers recover a hammer. This apparently significant find came after the house had already been searched nine times. They found a hammer with a head hair adhering to it. At the time this was a potential murder weapon and a significant find.
‘The officers who searched the kitchen on 18 March were confident the hammer was not there during their search.’
One detective sergeant who made the bizarre ‘find’, Bob Beveridge, was disciplined with colleague Alan Stewart and later booted out of CID.
Mackay also reveals how detectives faked entries in their own diary of the murder inquiry. They blundered by referring to Lawrence as ‘the deceased’ before his death.
Mackay states: ‘There are four references to the ‘deceased’ Lawrence Haggart purporting to be made on 16 March 1996 but he did not die until the following day.
‘Retrospective entries had been made which further compromises its contents and integrity.’
Mackay reveals how officers lost a piece of green metal which may have been used to murder the teenager.
Officers claimed they had logged it with a production room at Falkirk police office but staff there denied it.
Mackay also slates the decision to name Dennis as the person responsible for the murder in a report to the fiscal.
He said: ‘Police information against Dennis Haggart was devoid of any evidence.’
The team did not even consider the likelihood the killing was sexually motivated. Mackay states: ‘A pair of pants was the only article being worn by Lawrence Haggart at the time of his discovery.
‘This article was never sent for examination.
‘This was a significant oversight particularly when these pants yielded a number of hairs when examined during the review inquiry.’
The document also reveals how Beattie, finally convicted of the murder, was a walking timebomb.
He was jailed in 1994 for breaking into a house in Stenhousemuir and indecently assaulting and abducting a young man. While in jail, Beattie ‘spoke of ‘wishing he had killed the young man afterwards so that he wouldn’t get caught In June 1994 social workers warned Beattie was ‘considered a very high risk of reoffending’.
Officers knew of his history of sex attacks on male youths and fire-raising.
Mackay says: ‘No checks were carried out on Beattie during the murder inquiry.
‘It was not until January 1997 that Beattie’s criminal record was accessed.’ Beattie was quizzed by police and two officers searched his car and caravan but ignored a petrol container and a hammer.
The officers then went to Lawrence’s home where they took samples and risked contaminating the scene.
Fire officers were in the living room for 90 minutes after the blaze – destroying fingerprint and footprint evidence.
Police photographs of the scene showed a glass bottle in the kitchen.
Mackay says: ‘Beattie is known to have struck a previous victim over the head with such a bottle yet this fact appears to have been overlooked.’
The force has made a public apology and paid pounds 20,000 compensation to Dennis and John.
But they refuse to release sections of the report dealing with the criminal probe against murder squad officers.
Last week Larry Haggart appealed against the decision to keep secret the final pieces of the Mackay report
The Mackay report:
The secret police report condemns the way murder squad officers investigated the death of Lawrence Haggart. Assistant chief constable James Mackay revealed how they#Faked entries in official diary of the murder inquiry at a later date.
# Failed to carry out basic searches of paedophile killer Brian Beattie’s criminal record.
# Contaminated the crime scene and destroyed evidence # ‘Discovered’ a hammer in the Haggart family’s kitchen – after their home had already been searched NINE times. #Did not even consider a sexual motive for the murder.
# Lost a potential murder weapon and ignored another in the boot of the killer’s car
Police fury as retiral saves chief from action
THERE was anger last night after it was revealed that the police officer who led the original, discredited inquiry into the murder of young footballer Lawrence Haggart is to escape punishment.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12344134.Police_fury_as_retiral_saves_chief_from_action/
30 “Lifers” get early release from prison each year
May 13, 2012
But families of victims are furious about the early release policy.
The father of Lawrence Haggart spoke out after it was revealed his son’s killer was released after just 15 years, despite having been handed a life sentence.
Larry Haggart said it would be his “worst nightmare” if he ever came in contact with paedophile Brian Beattie, who killed Lawrence in their family home in Stirlingshire, 1996.
http://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/2012/05/13/30-lifers-get-early-release-from-prison-each-year/
Helping Larry Haggart’s family led to trial, claims cleared man. A TYCOON cleared of rape claims he had to undergo the ordeal of a High Court trial as payback for helping a murder victim s family.
https://www.falkirkherald.co.uk/news/rape-trial-was-payback-claims-tycoon-1-292845
Ex-Celtic coach Jim McCafferty pleads guilty to child sex abuse
May 21 2018
A former Celtic Football Club kit man who was accused of abusing a boy admitted the charges against him – just as his trial was due to start.
Jim McCafferty, 72, had previously pleaded “not guilty” but changed his plea at Laganside Courts in Belfast.
He was accused of a series of sexual offences against the same boy over a three-year period before December 2015.
Defence barrister Patrick Taylor asked the court this morning to put the eight charges to him again.
McCafferty replied, “Guilty, your honour” to the first charge and accepted the seven other charges.
Worked at Hibernian
McCafferty, whose address was listed as Raby Street in south Belfast, was arrested in December 2016.
He previously lived in Glasgow and worked at Celtic more than 20 years ago.
He also worked at a number of other Scottish clubs, including Hibernian, before moving to Northern Ireland in recent years.
He is not believed to have worked in football in Belfast in any capacity.
He is due to be sentenced next month.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-44194256?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Chelsea issue secret payout to alleged sexual abuse victim of former scout
• Club reached out-of-court settlement and details not disclosed
Chelsea have become the first club to issue a payout to an alleged victim since the full extent of football’s sex abuse scandal was exposed but risk drawing criticism for not making the compensation deal public.
The club have reached an out-of-court settlement with a junior player who was allegedly abused by Chelsea’s former chief scout Eddie Heath but declined to comment on the specifics of the deal. They have previously been condemned for paying £50,000 to another former player, Gary Johnson, in effect to buy his silence.
Chelsea would not disclose how much money was paid to the alleged victim, who claimed Heath sexually abused him at the club’s old training ground in Mitcham, south London. The payment was made by the club’s insurers rather than directly by Chelsea. Heath died in the mid-1980s but former Chelsea players have since come forward to allege he abused them in the showers after training sessions and games.
He was said to have cynically targeted boys with single mothers and offered to give them a lift to and from the training ground to allow himself the opportunity to carry out the abuse. He became known as the “man in the van” because he would drive young players around on such a regular basis.
Chelsea will be keen to avoid appearing like they are attempting to conceal any compensation payments after they were widely denounced for making Johnson sign a confidentiality clause. Johnson, who went on to play for the club’s first team, said he was abused by Heath hundreds of times in the 1970s. He approached Chelsea in 2015 looking for compensation and alleged the club attempted to sweep the incident under the carpet. They offered him £50,000 and made him sign a confidentiality clause, in effect paying for his silence.
Legal experts have predicted the final cost of compensation for abuse victims across British football could reach more than £100m. As of 31 December 2017, the number of football sex abuse victims was 839 with 294 alleged suspects and 334 clubs impacted. Those figures are according to Operation Hydrant, the police investigation into allegations of non-recent child sex abuse.
In February the former football coach Barry Bennell was jailed for 30 years after being found guilty of subjecting junior players from Manchester City and Crewe Alexandra to hundreds of sexual offences. The trial cost £750,000 but Manchester City have already spent over £1m on their own inquiry. They have received claims from a number of Bennell’s former players and hired two of Manchester’s biggest legal firms. Gary Cliffe, who waived his right to anonymity, is one of the people taking legal action against the club.
City also had a representative for their own legal team inside Liverpool crown court observing during every day of the Bennell trial. Bennell has appealed against the sentence and a date for an appeal hearing is being fixed. City have also been in contact with the family of Mark Hazeldine. Hazeldine, who had been a youth star at City and was previously coached by Bennell, took his own life in 2006. His family and friends have said that they fear he was abused when Bennell took him alone to Spain aged 12.
The Football Association is conducting its own internal review concurrently, led by Clive Sheldon QC. The aim is to find out what officials and clubs knew about potential abuse and when, looking at documents from 1970 to 2005. It is reviewing 6,000 files flagged as relevant during an initial review of more than 3,000 boxes from the FA’s archive. The governing body has also taken the accounts of more than 100 survivors of football-related abuse and received contributions from over 50 other relevant people. Chelsea declined to comment when contacted by the Guardian.
Rangers abuse claim victim told to contact liquidators for compensation
16 May 2018
A former youth footballer who says he was sexually abused by a Rangers coach has been told by the club he should pursue his complaint with liquidators.
The man claims he was abused within the Ibrox stadium by Gordon Neely who was head of youth development in the 1980s.
But the alleged victim has been told by lawyers for Rangers that the duty of care is not with the current owners.
They said that when the abuse took place Rangers were owned by a different company which was now in liquidation.
The man, who is in his 40s, was offered help in accessing counselling services, but no apology was made in correspondence from the club’s lawyers.
Alleged abuser now dead
An email sent to the solicitors of David – not his real name – explained: “You will understand that there have been many changes affecting Rangers over the last several years.
“The company which owned Rangers Football Club…. which you refer to as owing duties of care to your client will have been the company then called The Rangers Football Club PLC and now called RFC 2012 Limited.
“That company is currently in liquidation but we do have the liquidators’ contact details and can provide that information if it will assist.”
Last year the BBC revealed a catalogue of alleged abuse by Neely at various clubs, but he died in 2014 before facing justice.
He was in youth development at Hibs in 1983 and then moved to a similar role at Rangers in 1986.
That is where he came into contact with 11-year-old David.
He spoke to the BBC about his boyhood dream of playing at Ibrox: “I came from a working class family to be invited in your full Rangers tracksuit and shown about the stadium, walking up the marble stair case. It was a huge, huge event for me and my family.”
David trained at the club for three years, but he said his encounter with Neely in his youth would have a terrible and lasting impact on his life.
‘My life basically fell apart’
He explained: “[An] injury I was carrying was having a detrimental effect on my game and I was basically summoned to Gordon Neely’s room, within the confines of Ibrox.
“He asked me to lay up on top of like a blue medical table, sort of dark, dark blue and he started rubbing my thigh, even though my injury was my hamstring.
“That happened for a minute or two, discussing the in and outs of why I wasn’t playing so well. He then asked me to stand up and bend over the medical table and take my shorts down.”
David says he was then sexually assaulted by Neely.
He added: “I’ve racked my brain for years and years to think ‘was this a normal thing to do?’ Obviously I know now that it’s not.
“My life basically fell apart that night. Everything changed, everything changed that night. The heart went out of me for playing football, academically I stopped doing so well at school.”
Almost two years ago, David, who is a season ticket holder at Ibrox, spoke to a solicitor about the alleged abuse and was advised to make a claim against Rangers.
Rangers’ lawyers said the club offered its “deepest concern”, however, it made it clear that any compensation claim would be for the liquidators of the company which had previously owned the club.
David told the BBC: “My issue’s always been that they may be a …different legal entity, but they’re still the same club. And although they don’t have the same maybe liability legally, certainly morally they’re still the same club.”
A statement from Rangers Football Club said they would “co-operate fully” with all those who had a “genuine interest” in seeking to protect children and “addressing the wrongs” of what had happened in the past.
‘Cheap and nasty attacks’
It said that both the Scottish FA and Police Scotland had been informed of the matter.
The statement added: “It is vital matters are dealt with sensitively and with proper care and regard for those involved.
“We will not respond to questions that seek to turn allegations of desperate and deplorable conduct from three or more decades ago into cheap and nasty attacks on Rangers Football Club, and those of its employees who now have to attend to such difficult matters.”
I’d like them [Rangers] to realise the impact that it’s had and get an apology off them face-to-face. That’s my real goal.”
Pat Mair from Scottish charity Talk Now which counsels victims of sexual abuse has worked with adults who suffered in childhood.
She said: “The survivors are looking for acknowledgment, they’re looking for communication with the football clubs where they were abused.
“The abuse happened at Rangers Football Club but they are not taking any responsibility and it’s as if they’re not accountable for it.”
David said he wanted “someone from Rangers” to contact him so he could tell them his story.
He went on: “And I’d like them to sit there and listen to me and realise the impact that it’s had and get an apology off them face-to-face. That’s my real goal.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-44126217
Former football coach denies historical sex abuse charges
15 May 2018
A former youth football coach has denied a string of historical child sex abuse charges
Kit Carson, who’s 74 and used to be youth manager at Norwich, appeared at Cambridge Crown Court to deny all 13 charges.
The offences are alleged to have happened between 1978 and 2009.
Carson also worked for Peterborough United and Cambridge United.
A date for his trial has yet to be set.
Graham Rix
Martin Henry – The head of the footie inquiry, The church & the paedophile ring. – part 1
Former Southampton youth football coach, 64, faces 50 charges of historic sexual abuse of 24 victims
- Bob Higgins, 64, denies historic sexual offences against boys under the age of 17
- Southampton Magistrates’ Court heard alleged offences date from 1970 to 1996
- Alleged offences are against boys he came into contact with through football
Former Southampton youth football coach Bob Higgins will face 50 counts of historic sexual offences against 24 victims, a court heard today.
The 64-year-old denies all the offences, relating to his time as a coach at Southampton and Peterborough United spread over 30 years.
Higgins is alleged to have committed the offences, which include indecent assaults and attempted indecent assaults, against boys who he mainly came in to contact with through football.
Today at Salisbury Crown Court, Wilts, it was heard the former coach will face 50 counts of historic sexual offences against boys under the age of 17.
All the alleged offences are said to have taken place over a 26 year period between 1970 and 1996.
Higgins, of Southampton, Hants, was not required to attend the pre-trial review hearing today.
Prosecutor Adam Feest QC said Higgins’ defence team would be making an application to split the case in to three parts before the trial began.
He said: ‘We understand the defence will make an application of severence.
‘This will be an application to split the trial into three.’
Judge Jonathan Fuller QC said he would hear the application from Charles Gabb, defending, and any arguments against this from Mr Feest on May 24 at Bournemouth Crown Court, Dorset.
Several police forces in the UK launched wide-ranging investigations into sexual abuse in football in November and a dedicated NSPCC helpline for football received 860 calls in its first week.
Southampton FC has cooperated with Hampshire Police as part of Operation Quantum since a ‘significant and complex investigation’ began in December, when several players came forward to allege they were abused.
It is not known whether these allegations of abuse were related to Higgins.
In a statement released in December, the club said: ‘Hampshire Police and Southampton Football Club are committed to working together to investigate any historical allegations that may be brought to light in the Hampshire area.
‘The club has informed Hampshire Police that we will offer our full support to any investigation they undertake, for as long as it takes, and with our full focus.
‘The club works closely and tirelessly with the Premier League to promote the safeguarding of children and young people who are under our care or using our facilities, and their well-being is paramount to all staff.’
Football coach Kit Carson pleads not guilty to child sexual offences
Scout, 74, faces multiple charges over alleged offences between 1978 and 2009
A youth football coach and scout credited with helping launch the careers of several professional players has appeared in court charged with sexual offences against 11 boys.
Kit Carson, 74, pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of indecent assault and one of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.
The offences are alleged to have happened between 1978, when Carson was 35, and 2009.
Seven of the indecent assault charges relate to boys under 14 and four under 16. The incitement charge involves a boy aged between 13 and 15.
Carson, whose full name is Michael Sean Carson, was arrested in his home city of Cambridge in January 2017 and charged in March this year.
He was the academy director at Peterborough football club from 1993 until 2001 and a number of players he coached there went on to have careers in the Premier League.
The bulk of the alleged indecent assault offences are said to have taken place between 1992 and 2000.
Before working at Peterborough, Carson was at Norwich City from 1983 until 1993, and he has connections with other junior teams. On his LinkedIn page, he described himself as a football consultant and scout for a Finnish club. Carson left Peterborough to become head of talent development at Cambridge United in 2001 and remained there until 2005.
The first two alleged indecent assaults are said to have taken place between September 1978 and September 1980.
According to the particulars of the offences, the first alleged indecent assault happened at a hotel in the north of England. Another eight allegedly took place in or around Peterborough.
The incitement offence allegedly happened between February 2008 and February 2009 in Cambridge.
Carson stood in a glass-fronted dock at Cambridge magistrates court to confirm his name, address and date of birth.
Asked how he pleaded to the 12 charges, Carson replied: “Not guilty.”
Bail conditions were kept in place, which include Carson being barred from coaching children in the UK or travelling abroad to coach young people, and from involvement in scouting under-18s.
The magistrate told Carson the court had declined jurisdiction and he would next appear at Peterborough crown court on 15 May. Reporting restrictions were not lifted.
Barry Bennell appeals against 30-year prison sentence for sexual offences
• Former football coach seeks lighter punishment
• 64-year-old faces complaints from around 90 former players
19 Apr 2018
Deborah Davies @DDaviesAJ
Truthseeker @thewakeupcall09
Just the tip of a very large iceberg
One of William McAlpine’s fellow directors at Fairbridge in Scotland was James Torbett of the Celtic boys club scandal
Ex-Celtic coach James Torbett to stand trial charged with historical sex abuse of SIX boys
6 Apr 2018
FORMER Celtic Boys Club coach and founder James Torbett is to stand trial charged with historic sexual abuse of six young boys.
The 70 year-old today faced the allegations during a hearing at the High Court in Glasgow.
Torbett, of the city’s Kelvindale, faces a total of 12 charges spanning from January 1970 to August 1994.
The boys mentioned are said to have been aged between four and 14 when Torbett is first accused of abusing them.
A number of locations are listed on the indictment including Barrowfield Football Ground in Glasgow’s London Road, where Celtic used to train.
Offences are said to have occurred at Torbett’s home, dormitories in Belgium and France as well as training facilities in Glasgow’s west end and Bristol, England.
Prosecutors also list “factory premises” known as The Trophy Centre in the city’s Pollokshaws.
Torbett’s QC Tony Graham today pled not guilty on his behalf to the charges.
Judge Lady Stacey set a trial due to begin in June. The case could last up to 10 days.
Bail for Torbett was continued meantime.
Torbett faces a total of 12 charges spanning some 24 years and involving children as young as four.
https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/former-celtic-boys-club-coach-14495376
Truthseeker @thewakeupcall09
Whilst Gerry McCann was the Celtic doctor in the mid 90’s, Celtic youth player Lawrence Haggart was murdered / died on the 17th March 1996. Tommy Burns was Celtic manager from 1994 until 1997. Jim McCafferty was the Celtic scout / youth coach / kitman from 1990 until (May) 1996.
https://spidercatweb.blog/2018/07/31/mccann-celtic-fc-paedo-ring/
Crewe excluded from regional awards for handling of Barry Bennell scandal
• League Two club to be barred from Northwest Football Awards
• Crewe council prepares to pass motion against Alexandra
Mar 10 2018
David Lean @DavidLeanLeano
Is it ok to let the Countries biggest paedophile within sport, to strut around Butlins grooming & sexually abusing boys in the late 70s & 80s & not hold any type of inquiry into a Butlins Holiday Camp? He was at certain stages of this period there resident coach ! #BarryBennell
Michael ‘Kit’ Carson: Ex-football coach charged with abuse of 11 boys
2 March 2018
Michael “Kit” Carson has worked as a coach and scout for a number of clubs
A former youth football coach and scout has been charged with indecently assaulting 11 children.
Michael “Kit” Carson, 74, was charged in connection with a football abuse probe in Cambridgeshire.
He is accused of 11 counts of indecent assault and one of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, all involving boys under 16.
The alleged offences happened from 1978 to 2009. He will appear at Cambridge Magistrates’ Court on 17 April.
Mr Carson, of St Bartholomew’s Court, Riverside, Cambridge, was initially arrested in January 2017.
He has been released on conditional bail.
Mr Carson has worked for clubs including Peterborough United, Cambridge United and Norwich City.
He joined the Canaries as youth manager in 1983, working with children aged nine to 16, before joining Peterborough as an academy director 10 years later.
In 2001, he moved to Cambridge United as head of youth development, a post he retained until 2006, when he left to join Histon FC.
Mr Carson has also worked extensively in Finland – where he began coaching youth teams in 2012 – and took UK youth teams on competitive tours of the country.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-43257168
Crewe ‘burying heads in sand’ after reneging on promise to conduct independent inquiry into Barry Bennell’s crimes
Crewe Alexandra have abandoned plans to launch an independent inquiry into serial child sex abuse perpetrated by the club’s former youth coach Barry Bennell
2 March 2018
Victims of Barry Bennell have accused Crewe Alexandra of “burying their heads in the sand” after the club reneged on their promise to conduct an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse by its jailed youth football coach.
The League Two club issued a 925-word statement on Friday afternoon in which they said they would no longer be launching a planned internal review after claiming there was no need to “duplicate the thorough inquiries” of Cheshire Police, whom they said had found no evidence that anyone at Crewe knew about Bennell’s offending.
Crewe also appeared to question the veracity of claims by the club’s former managing director, Hamilton Smith, that he had reported a complaint of abuse by Bennell in the late 1980s by saying nobody at the club, including current chairman John Bowler and director of football Dario Gradi, had any recollections of Smith ever raising the matter.
In a further move to discredit Smith, the club also questioned why he waited until 2016 to report his concerns to the police, and 2001 to the Football Association, by which time Bennell had already been convicted of offences.
The former Crewe and Manchester City coach was described as a “child molester on an industrial scale” and “the devil incarnate” when sentenced last month to 30 years in prison after being found guilty of 43 charges of child sexual abuse throughout the 1980s. Another 86 people have since come forward to make complaints of abuse against him.
It was alleged this week that Bennell was fired by Crewe in January 1992 shortly after he was confronted by parents about his behaviour, rumours of which were claimed to be widespread at the time.
But Crewe said the police investigation “concluded that there was no suggestion that Bennell was dismissed by the club for anything other than football-related reasons” and added that an “extremely thorough” investigation by Cheshire Police had persuaded them to pull the plug on the independent review they promised in November 2016. By contrast, Manchester City are more than a year into their own internal review.
One of Bennell’s victims, Andy Woodward, whose interview with The Guardian at that time gave others the strength to come forward and triggered a wave of allegations that culminated in the coach’s trial at Liverpool Crown Court, reacted furiously to Crewe’s statement and accused the club of hiding behind the police. The statement also made no comments on allegations by the BBC this week that a Crewe employee was asked to remove pornography from the home computer of then manager Gradi in 2001. Gradi has always denied any wrongdoing.
“This statement speaks for itself,” Woodward said. “Once again the victims come last, after the reputation of the club. What has happened has ruined mine, my family and many, many others that played for the club as vulnerable children. I’m bitterly disappointed with their response, but I’d rather focus my energy on driving change, so no club can let this happen again, than dwell on the past.
“Crewe had a moral responsibility to investigate their own failings. Instead they seem to want to bury their heads in the sand and, if nothing else, at least people can now see the way the club operate.
“As far as I know, they have not asked to speak to any of the former players from this harrowing court case to learn about how this scandal happened and what could have been done to prevent it. A police investigation, looking for possible crimes, is entirely different to an independent inquiry being set up to investigate what went wrong and make sure it never happens again. For the many victims, this is just another kick in the teeth but, as shocking as it is, nothing should really surprise us about Crewe any more.”
Woodward’s sentiments were echoed in a statement by The Offside Trust, the charity set up by some of Bennell’s victims to support survivors of child sexual abuse in sport. “We believe that these clubs have a moral responsibility to open their doors to a truly independent investigation,” the trust said. “If clubs having nothing to hide, they should not shirk from this duty.
“The healing process for survivors will not be easy. But it is made more difficult when individuals and institutions refuse to properly address the past and fail to demonstrate any empathy and remorse. We sincerely hope that clubs will acknowledge this and agree to appropriate independent scrutiny.”
Dario Gradi: Ex-employee claims Crewe asked him to wipe pornography from then-manager’s computer
A former Crewe Alexandra employee claims that in 2001 he was asked by a senior official at the club to help wipe pornography off the home computer of then-manager Dario Gradi, the BBC has learned.
According to a statement given to the NSPCC in 2011, the man – who does not want to be identified – was told that Gradi had been hosting a group of young Irish Under-13 players at his house and they had been viewing the material on his computer.
He says he was “amazed” that Gradi was allowed to host boys “in this manner”, especially after Crewe’s former youth coach Barry Bennell had been convicted of child sex crimes in 1994 – and again in 1998.
The man told the NSPCC “it all seemed odd” and he raised his concerns with the club’s chairman John Bowler, but he dismissed the behaviour as “quirky and nothing more”.
In 2011 the former employee reported his “concerns” about the alleged incident – which occurred in July 2001 – to the NSPCC and also spoke to Cheshire police.
In November 2016 after fresh allegations were made about Bennell, the former employee contacted the NSPCC for a second time, and again spoke to the police.
In a statement, Cheshire Police told the BBC: “In December 2012 Cheshire Police received reports regarding concerns about material on a computer.
“Following enquiries, it was established that no criminal activity had taken place. The person who made the report was updated at the time.”
When approached by the BBC and asked to confirm what steps to safeguard young players had been taken after Bennell’s 1994 and 1998 convictions, Crewe declined to comment.
Earlier this month, former Manchester City and Crewe coach Bennell was found guilty of 50 counts of historical child sexual abuse and sentenced to 31 years in prison.
Gradi – now director of football – was suspended by the FA in late 2016.
He and Crewe have always maintained they did not know about any abuse by Bennell until allegations surfaced in 1994, and did not receive a complaint of sexual abuse by him.
The informant – who is now aged 47 and no longer works in football – has now approached the FA’s independent Sheldon Inquiry into allegations of child sex abuse in football.
In a statement, the NSPCC said: “We would not confirm details of whether a specific contact was made to our helpline, because the service enables adults to report in confidence any concerns or worries they have about a child.
“However, we refer any contacts that indicate a child is at risk or in danger to local authorities such as police or social services, as we did with almost three quarters of the 66,218 calls our helpline received last year.”
http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/43211929
Alex Carlile QC, in the 1998 Barry Bennell case
David Lean @DavidLeanLean
Why in the Barry Bennell case of 98 did the CPS prosecuting office now LORD Carlile allow Bennell to plead guilty to just 23 specimen charges. Around just 50% of the Charges! Even though he was already a convicted Paedophile? As such serve just 6 years of 9 !!!
So many questions that need answers ! FA, CPS, POLICE, BUTLINS, TAXAL EDGE, CLUBS !!
more on Lord Carlile here
Former Celtic kit man appears in court on child sex abuse charges
Jim McCafferty pleaded not guilty to three charges after being reprimanded in custody for over a year.
24 FEB 2018
Former Celtic kit man Jim McCafferty has pleaded not guilty to three charges of child sex abuse in court.
The 72-year-old appeared in the dock in Belfast after spending 444 days on remand in HMP Maghaberry in Co Antrim, Northern Ireland.
McCafftery used a walking aid to get into court 11 at Laganside courts, and wearing a brown v-neck jumper and gray sweat pants, he sat with his head bowed occasionally with a female guard at his side.
He pleaded not guilty to three charges of sexual assault on a boy.
The first charge was intentionally touching a male under the age of 16 without consent at some time between December 6, 2012 and December 8, 2013.
Additional medical reports have been ordered and a date for trial was set for May 21.
McCafferty, who is from Motherwell but has been living in South Belfast in recent years, will remain on remand in Maghaberry Jail until trial.
McCafferty was arrested after walking into a Belfast police station in December 2016 following a series of revelations in the Daily Record.
McCafferty worked at Celtic more than 20 years ago.
He was a kit man for other Scottish clubs, including Falkirk and Hibs, before moving to Northern Ireland.
McCafferty also coached at youth clubs in West Lothian.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/ex-celtic-kit-man-appears-12077867
Paedophile football coach Barry Bennell jailed for 30 years as judge tells him he ‘appeared as God…but was devil incarnate’
Bennell, 64, was convicted of 50 child sexual offences at Liverpool Crown Court, but it is believed he may have more than 100 victims in total
Feb 19 2018
Bennell has already served three jail terms – one in the United States – since 1995 for similar offences involving 16 separate victims.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/barry-barry-why-barry-bennell-12050111
How can the same regime still be in charge at Crewe after Barry Bennell made it into football’s house of horrors? For sake of the abused and their families, for the good of his club, Dario Gradi should have quit long ago
- Barry Bennell found guilty of 43 sex offences and will be sentenced on Thursday
- It is clear the fight for justice to be served will not end with Bennell’s sentencing
- Hard questions need to be asked of Crewe and how they approached the scandal
Before Barry Bennell is sentenced tomorrow at Liverpool Crown Court, it would be fitting and just if some of the survivors of his abuse were allowed to address him one last time in the way some of the survivors of the actions of Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastic team doctor, stood up to eviscerate him in a US federal court this month.
Bennell is scum. He is human trash. I hope the judge hands him a sentence that ensures he lives the rest of his life in captivity for the way he used football as a cover to ruin so many young lives, crush so many dreams and tear apart so many families.
Boys became men and lived with the horrors of what he had done, unable to share their secrets because of feelings of shame and guilt. Some — we will never know how many — killed themselves because of this monster in football’s midst.
Our legal system does not make provision for it but how right it would seem to see courageous men such as Andy Woodward and Steve Walters, whose bravery in coming forward and waiving their anonymity did so much to bring Bennell to justice, confronting him with the reality of what he had done. It was an ordeal for Nassar to hear the wrenching testimony of those he had betrayed. It would be the same for Bennell.
I understand that those instincts to see Bennell suffer just a slice of the humiliation he inflicted upon so many others should quickly be superseded by a determination to make sure the conditions that enabled him to roam free at Manchester City and Crewe Alexandra must never be recreated in the modern-day game.
But it is also clear that the fight for justice to be served properly will not end with Bennell’s sentencing. This is just the start. As soon as he is sent down, many, many hard questions need to be asked of Crewe, in particular, and the way they have approached the scandal that has befallen them. Their response, from start to finish, has been less than impressive. In fact, it has been pathetic.
Questions need to be asked of City, too, and it is already clear that their actions at the time of the abuse in the Eighties left much to be desired. The regime that was in place at the time failed in its duty of care to players. Some of the most distressing, disturbing testimony of recent days suggests that Bennell even abused young players as they lay sunbathing on the pitch at Maine Road.
But even though City have different owners now and an entirely different hierarchy, they have accepted their responsibilities. They have instituted a QC-led inquiry into themselves, investigators have already devoted 4,000 hours and £1million to it and they have uncovered another alleged paedophile with whom they have ‘potential historic connections’.
So far, at least, they have done their best to shine a light on the darkness of the past. Their manager, Pep Guardiola, also spoke movingly on Friday of ‘the terrible history’ that had unfolded and the horror he felt about what had happened.
Crewe’s situation is different. Dario Gradi, the man who was instrumental in bringing Bennell to the club in 1985, is still the director of football. It was left to the Football Association to suspend him in December 2016 after a new wave of revelations about Bennell’s activities while he was a youth coach at Gresty Road emerged.
More than that, John Bowler, who has been a director at Crewe since 1980, is now the club chairman. He has been the club chairman since 1987. Crewe said in November 2016 that they would hold an independent review ‘at the earliest opportunity’ but, 15 months on, it appears that it has still not begun.
Only last week, the Daily Mail revealed that Gradi wrote a glowing character reference for Bennell even after he had been arrested for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy in Florida in 1994. There is no suggestion he knew Bennell was abusing children but he knew that children stayed at Bennell’s house. Bennell was even paid expenses to take boys home during his seven years with the club.
Crewe Alexandra director of football Dario Gradi (right) faces questions about why he provided a character reference for serial paedophile Barry Bennell (left)
And Hamilton Smith, a Crewe board member from 1986 to early 1990, said in November 2016 that he was so concerned about Bennell that he had arranged two management meetings in the late Eighties to discuss an allegation against him. The second of these, he said, was in Gradi’s office and was attended by Gradi.
Common sense dictates, surely, that these facts alone and the innuendo surrounding Bennell’s activity that was widespread in the game ought to have tempered Gradi’s and the club’s support for Bennell in the face of such serious charges. It did not.
‘We suffered because of a disgusting predator,’ said Walters last week. ‘But we also suffered sometimes because the sport we loved decided that the reputation of a coach, club or a sport was put above the protection of children. Our abuse is punctuated by the failure of adults to protect innocent children, the failure of adults to act when abuse was reported, the failure to be vigilant and brave.’
So many of Bennell’s crimes happened when Gradi and Bowler had prominent roles in the running of the club and the management of the club’s youth system and yet somehow both men are still in their posts at Crewe. That fact, alone, beggars belief. They may not have known what Bennell was doing but they still bear a heavy responsibility for the lives that were ruined. Unwittingly, Gradi and Bowler empowered Bennell. Parents trusted the club with their boys and the club let them down. It let them down spectacularly.
For the good of the club, for their own dignity, for the sake of the parents who are still coming to terms with what happened to their boys at Crewe, for the sake of those who were abused, Gradi and Bowler should have resigned by now, like any decent men would have.
At the very least they showed an appalling lack of judgment by allowing Bennell to work at the club. Even on Friday, as Guardiola was talking about the horror of what had happened in front of the world’s press, Bowler was sticking to a frosty no comment when Channel 4’s Keme Nzerem spoke to him on his doorstep. The club’s lack of public regret for what happened has been grotesque.
Even the official statement Crewe put on the club website made no apology for what happened. Instead, it featured a long, rambling attempt to try to cover themselves for what had happened and, bizarrely, a boast that Woodward had been unsuccessful in an attempt to sue the club for compensation 16 years ago.
Once more, that was insensitive at best and unfeeling, inappropriate, uncaring, brutal and stupid at worst. There will be plenty of time for the club to look out for themselves but the day when crimes against so many children once in the club’s care were proved was most definitively not that time. They do not understand the gravity of what has happened.
It is time Crewe Alexandra got real. Gradi presided over the most successful time in the club’s history. That is true. But it is also true that while he was in charge, Crewe played host to one of the most prolific paedophiles in English legal history. That is what will be remembered. Not the fact that the club won a few promotions.
And in the future, when we look back at reports of Gradi’s ‘much-vaunted youth system’, we will do so with a sick feeling in our stomachs and the grim knowledge that, behind the facade, Crewe was English football’s equivalent of a house of horrors.
When we look back at reports of Gradi’s ‘much-vaunted youth system’, we will do so with a sick feeling in our stomachs
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-5404321/How-regime-charge-Crewe.html
David Lean @DavidLeanLeano
I can save the Government millions ‘re an inquiry into Bennell……. Were FA warned & aware ? Yes ! Were Clubs warned & aware ? Yes ! Did CPS get it wrong in some many ways from 97 onwards ? Yes ! So Wonder where this will go now ?
Manchester City ‘ignored warnings’ and kept Barry Bennell in youth set-up
Feb 15 2018
• Bennell continued scouting and coaching for City, abusing countless boys
• City youth coach Steve Fleet urged club in 1970s to keep away from Bennell
• Bennell convicted of a total of 50 offences against 12 boys
Manchester City, one of the clubs most seriously implicated in the Barry Bennell sexual abuse scandal, have been accused of putting hundreds of boys in danger after it emerged they were warned by one of their own coaches in the late-1970s it was “general knowledge” he was a risk to children.
Bennell, who is facing complaints from another 86 former footballers, continued scouting and coaching for City’s junior teams, raping and molesting countless boys in seven years connected to the club, even though high-ranking officials had been warned to keep away from a man who now faces the rest of his life in prison and has been described as having “almost an insatiable appetite” for young boys.
The revelations leave City facing a number of questions now Bennell has been convicted of 50 counts of sexual abuse against 12 victims. Bennell, 64, will be sentenced on Monday after admitting seven of the charges, with the jury returning guilty verdicts for the other 43 offences.
Cries of “yes” came from the public gallery at Liverpool crown court where six complainants sat with family members as the final verdicts were read out on Thursday and some were in tears. Bennell sat muttering to himself and shaking his head.
The first victim to initiate these proceedings, Gary Cliffe, has waived his anonymity to speak exclusively to the Guardian about the hundreds of occasions when he was abused, aged 11 to 15, in City’s set-up.
Police documents from the 1990s question whether City were later involved in a cover-up, with one of the detectives investigating the case suggesting the club’s priority was to avoid damaging publicity, and the Guardian has seen a written admission from another former employee in which he acknowledges that “suspicions about him [Bennell] were aired on many an occasion.”
An investigation by this newspaper has also led to a taped interview in which Bennell states he had to leave his coaching role at Crewe Alexandra, the club he joined after City, because a complaint had been made against him, raising further questions about why he was not reported at the time. Crewe provided references for his next job and have been the subject of a police investigation as well as being a major focus of the Football Association’s independent inquiry.
However, it can now be revealed that Bennell was identified as a risk long before joining Crewe and that one member of City’s staff, the youth-team coach Steve Fleet, put his own job on the line when the club’s directors wanted to give the man they called “the star-maker” a full-time role as youth development officer.
Bennell was not given the job but, despite those warnings, he remained in City’s set-up, coaching at their old training ground and even abusing boys while sunbathing on the pitch at Maine Road, the club’s former ground, before moving to Crewe in 1985. He is now being identified as potentially the worst paedophile, in terms of the number of boys affected, there has ever been in sport, having preyed on young footballers for almost a quarter of a century before he was arrested on a club tour to Florida in 1994. A second trial is now likely as the police go through the complaints from other former players, mostly from Manchester City and Crewe.
Len Davies, who spent many years working for City as a youth-team scout, has admitted one of England’s major football clubs was “beguiled and hoodwinked” and police documents recall a number of senior staff, including the chief scout Ken Barnes, being “quite evasive” and not prepared to explain why Bennell had left the club, other than citing “irregularities”.
Cliffe, now 47, is convinced City ought to have reported Bennell and removed him from the club’s junior system if there were any concerns about his relationship with young boys. “If those in positions of responsibility had challenged Bennell, hundreds of wrecked lives could have been saved,” he said. “They buried their heads. They had a duty of care and they failed dramatically.”
City are holding a QC-led inquiry and have identified another alleged paedophile – now deceased – with whom they have “potential historic connections”. They named him on Thursday night as John Broome, a part-time scout. They said they believed he was not connected to Bennell and were investigating his alleged offences. The club are facing the possibility of large-scale legal action. Fleet’s evidence shows Bennell continued to work in football for around 15 years after they were warned to avoid him.
“I was an FA coach at the time and at all the coaches’ meetings, at Everton, the Cliff [Manchester United’s old training ground], City and lots of places, whenever the talk got round to Barry Bennell it was never good,” Fleet said. “People would say he was ‘dodgy’ and if his name was brought up everyone would just shake their heads. It was general knowledge and I could see it with my own eyes. He nauseated me. I just knew – instant intuition – that the rumours were sound, that he wasn’t right and that he wouldn’t be good for the club.
“When Ken Barnes and other people at the club tried to fetch him in I told them I didn’t want anything to do with it. ‘He’s a star-maker,’ Ken said, ‘and he finds good lads,’ and that was true because Bennell was a very good scout. But I also knew he was a risk. In football, like any sport where there’s young people, there are perverts and I wouldn’t even let him into our coaches’ room. I felt so strongly about it I put my job on the line.
Barnes died in 2010 and his daughter, Karen, says it would be wrong to suggest he did not take the matter seriously enough. “I can unequivocally state that my father was absolutely and utterly appalled to hear about the abuse suffered. He also complained bitterly that much of what he said when interviewed for Dispatches had been edited. My father was a considerate and honest man, to which any of the footballers who knew him will attest.”
According to police files, the detectives investigating the 1994 case found Barnes “very cagey” and “played his cards close to his chest”. Muir said he had heard rumours about an incident involving Bennell and volunteered a boy’s name. Barnes, however, would not give a proper explanation about the “irregularities” that meant Bennell leaving for Crewe.
“He [Barnes] wasn’t really prepared to go into them at all,” Detective Sergeant Geoffrey Elvey of Crewe CID says in evidence provided to the Florida police. “We found they were quite evasive at the club. It was quite a lengthy interview. Obviously we were probing to try to find out why he [Bennell] left the club and basically I got the impression that Mr Barnes didn’t want or Mr Farrell really didn’t want to tell us. Bear in mind they are quite a prominent professional club and possibly wouldn’t want any sort of media attention drawn to the club.” Farrell declined to comment to the Guardian.
Davies, who died seven years ago, admits in a 2000 book that whereas Fleet “did not ever accept him [Bennell] as a person or coach” other people at City, including himself and Barnes, drastically misjudged the situation.
“Most of us at Manchester City, including those responsible for the enhancement of junior football, were held in awe at the coaching ability of Barry Bennell. I think the majority of us … were taken in and let down. Hundreds of people, and all the kids who played for him, trusted him. I only hope that the boys and their parents who suffered will forgive us in that we, too, were beguiled and hoodwinked by this terrible person.” Davies adds that “inquiries about his behaviour never revealed his paedophiliac mentality until it was too late”.
Crewe are also under intense scrutiny and a number of victims have called for the longstanding chairman, John Bowler, and the director of football, Dario Gradi, a figurehead at the club for more than 30 years, to resign since Andy Woodward and another former player, Steve Walters, told this newspaper what happened to them, instigating what the FA chairman, Greg Clarke, has described as the biggest crisis he can remember in the sport. Gradi has been suspended by the FA, though no official reason has been given.
Crewe said in November 2016 they would hold an independent review “at the earliest opportunity” but, 15 months on, have still not started it, claiming an unnamed authority told them to hold off until the criminal case was over. City, in stark contrast, say they received no such advice.
Both clubs have been asked by the Guardian if they want to comment about the new revelations and Crewe will also have to explain why Bennell was allowed to continue in his job when their former managing director, Hamilton Smith, has turned whistle-blower to reveal he instigated top-level talks, involving Bowler and Gradi, in the late-1980s because of an allegation against a man who has since described himself as a “monster.
Bennell was even paid expenses to take boys home during his seven years with the club and Gradi, the Guardian can reveal, was one of the people who supplied character references – his written on Crewe letter headed paper – when his colleague and friend was awaiting his 1994 court case in Florida.
In a statement, City offered “heartfelt sympathy to all victims for the unimaginably traumatic experiences they have endured. No one can remove their suffering or that of others who suffered sexual abuse as children as a result of their involvement with football. All victims were entitled to expect full protection from the kind of harm they endured.”
In a statement following the verdict, Crewe Alexandra said the club wanted “to reiterate that it was not aware of any sexual abuse by Mr Bennell, nor did it receive any complaint about sexual abuse by him, either before or during his employment with the club”.
It said that the club cooperated fully with the police in relation to Bennell’s prosecution in 1997 and with the recent investigation. “As a result of their investigations, the police found no evidence to corroborate that the club was aware of Mr Bennell’s offending,” said the statement.
It added: “The club wishes to make it absolutely clear that had it had any suspicion or belief that Mr Bennell was committing acts of abuse, either before, during or after he left the club’s employment, the club would have informed the police immediately
Barry Bennell found guilty of sexually abusing youth footballers
Ex-Manchester City and Crewe Alexandra coach convicted on charges covering 1979 to 1990
The former football coach Barry Bennell has been found guilty of multiple sexual offences against boys whom he targeted in the youth football set-ups of Manchester City and Crewe Alexandra.
Bennell, 64, was convicted of 36 charges at Liverpool crown court and the jury has asked for more time to consider further counts. He was found not guilty of three charges.
He had denied the allegations, which relate to 11 boys, who were aged eight to 14, from between 1979 and 1990, when he was renowned as one of football’s more successful youth team coaches and talent spotters.
Bennell, who appeared in the court via video-link, had already pleaded guilty to seven charges involving three boys and has previously served three prison sentences in England and the US.
He was described by the prosecution as a “devious paedophile” who had “pretty much unfettered access” to young footballers, but his defence had argued that the alleged victims made up the claims for attention and possible compensation.
Gary Speed ‘one of four men coached by Bennell who went on to take own lives
Ex-Wales manager Gary Speed was one of four men who went on to take their own lives after being coached by Barry Bennell, a court has heard.
A victim – who Bennell admitted abusing in 1998 – said he had tried to contact the parents of Speed to tell them about the abuse after reading that they had struggled to get closure because they had no explanation for his death.
Speed died by apparent suicide in 2011, aged 42.
“Four people from teams I have played with, with Bennell, have taken their own lives,” he told Liverpool Crown Court.
“Whether they have taken their lives due to Barry solely I don’t know but all I know is how it’s had an impact on me and how it could impact on other people.”
The victim was speaking at the trial of Bennell who denies 48 offences of child sexual abuse against 11 complainants between 1979 and 1990.
Speaking about contacting other alleged victims of Bennell, the victim said: “When people are breaking down on the phone, on the verge of suicide, when you hear of people who have taken their own lives”.
He told the court that he knew of other former youth players who had been left “destitute” and with alcohol problems.
The sex abuse trial of former football coach Barry Bennell enters its fourth day today, after the first alleged victim gave evidence yesterday.
The testimony, provided via video, said that Benell, a scout for Manchester City at the time, was “touchy” with the alleged victim when he first met the coach at the age of about 11.
The complainant said Bennell had a set of bunk beds next to his own bed in the room above the video shop he ran, adding that “he always put music on in the bedroom. It was panpipe music.”
Following a break for lunch the alleged victim was cross-examined while sitting behind a screen, with talkRADIO reporter Alex Dibble saying there was some “definite tension” between him and the defence.
The court also saw a recreaction of a police interview with Barry Bennell, in which the defendant said his first alleged victim was “the one that got away with it” by not being groomed.
Bennell also called some of the claims against him “ridiculous” and said he’d never do some of the things alleged while there were other boys in the bed at the same time.
The defendant even described some of the testimony of the first alleged victim as “impossible”, saying he “would never do something like that”.
Bennell has already admitted seven sexual abuse charges, but denies a further 48, relating to 11 complainants.
Former football coach Barry Bennell pleads guilty to child sex offences
Former football coach Barry Bennell has pleaded guilty to seven child sex offences at Liverpool Crown Court.
The 63-year, ex-Crewe Alexander coach admitted six offences on the first day of his trial, which is expected to last eight weeks.
A reporting restriction on a guilty plea to a charge of indecent assault entered by Bennell at an earlier hearing was lifted by Recorder of Liverpool Judge Clement Goldstone QC.
Bennell, who was charged under the name Richard Jones, is still due to stand trial for 48 offences including 35 counts of indecent assault, 11 counts of buggery and two counts of attempted buggery.
The charges he will stand trial on relate to 11 complainants and allegedly took place in the 1970s and 1980s, when the alleged victims were boys aged between eight and 15.
Bennell entered the pleas when he appeared via videolink in court wearing a grey jumper.
A jury is expected to be sworn in for his trial on the outstanding charges later on Monday.
From the spidercat web blog:
MARTIN HENRY, JAMES RENNIE, NEIL STRACHAN & CELTIC
James Rennie 38, lived in Marionville Road, Meadowbank studied physics at Heriot-Watt University, Became LGBT group worker in 1997, LGBT (Tollcross area of Edinburgh) chief exec by 2003. It was within the offices of LGBT Youth Scotland that Rennie accessed the Hotmail account “kplover” he used to view & distribute vile images of children. Rennie also sat on the board of YouthLink Scotland “Lothian and Borders Police have been clear that their investigations concerned James Rennie personally“
Neil Strachan 41, jailed for 3 yrs in 1997 for repeatedly molesting a boy. former Celtic Boys Club official started preying on the boy when he was only five, after befriending his parents. Strachan quit as secretary of Celtic East Boys Club after he was caught. The abuse had gone on for two years, shared a flat with partner Colin Slaven
Colin Slaven 23, Duff Street, Dalry
Ross Webber 27, bank worker, Gilbert Avenue, North Berwick,
Craig Boath 24, insurance claims adjuster, of Gourdie Street, Dundee
Neil Campbell 46, married manager of cake business. Lived in Glendareul Avenue & he was a Jordanhill Parish Church Elder & was part of the handbell-ringing club, was in the choir and helped in the Sunday School. He also cared for youngsters at the Jordanhill Out of School club. http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/12829053.Church_left_stunned_as_elder_guilty_of_child_porn/ https://archive.is/8Ch7v
John Milligan a civil servant, of Wanlock Street, Govan
John Murphy a trained teacher working part-time as a DJ in a gay bar & receptionist in gay sauna, lived Westmoreland Street, Govanhill. In 1995, Murphy, then assistant principal drama teacher at Claremont High School, East Kilbride
https://www.scotsman.com/news/horror-upon-horror-that-unfolded-in-worst-ever-abuse-trial-1-1037439 https://archive.is/dpkid
Nov 2011 Abuse ringleader James Rennie has minimum sentence cut
One of the ringleaders of Scotland’s biggest paedophile network has had his minimum prison sentence cut by four-and-a-half years by appeal judges. Rennie was ordered to serve a minimum of 13 years in jail. Appeal judges {Lord Clarke & Lord Philip} have reduced that to a minimum of eight-and-a-half years before he can apply for parole.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-15790605
https://twitter.com/calamiTcat/status/915727225265250304 https://archive.is/JdAAh
https://spidercatweb.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/checkdirector_co-uk-1.pdf
MARTIN HENRY IS ALSO HEADING THE CHILD ABUSE INQUIRY INTO SCOTTISH FOOTBALL
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15067434.Former_police_child_protection_head_leads_Scottish_football_s_abuse_investigation/ https://archive.is/LxgW0
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-38976269/concern-over-child-abuse-review-chairman https://archive.is/RbMSs
LGBT YOUTH SCOTLAND Director 27/02/2003 – 12/04/2006
MARTIN ROBERT THOMAS HENRY 908773478
Registered Address: Flat 4, 11 Hart Street, Edinburgh, EH1 3RN
I am sure that colleagues will want to join me in welcoming to the public gallery a number of visitors from LGBT Youth Scotland, including Jamie Rennie, the chief executive, and Martin Henry, the convener of its board. I want to give a particularly warm welcome to Sarah Rowlinson, who is one of the Philip Lawrence awardees. She is also a member of the Scottish Youth Parliament and was recently appointed as the vice convener of the LGBT Youth Scotland board. I am certain that the members who attended the LGBT Youth Scotland reception that I hosted in the Parliament last year will recall the exceptional speech that Sarah Rowlinson made on that occasion. I welcome and congratulate our visitors. https://uk.linkedin.com/in/martin-henry-83955273 https://archive.is/ucxtP
Rev Brian Gowans https://sigbi.org/kirkcaldy/2017/03/21/father-brian-gowans/ https://archive.is/dI3tM
Chaplains’ Advisor to the Scottish Prison Service
SPS HQ Calton House 5 Redheights Rigg EH12 9HW
T: (Office) 0131 244 4104 Mobile No: 07740 985 881 Home: 45 Cocklaw Street Kelty KY4 0DG T: 01383 831148 Email: (Home) brigo10@btinternet.com
Rev Brian Gowans https://sigbi.org/kirkcaldy/2017/03/21/father-brian-gowans/ https://archive.is/dI3tM
President Rev Brian Gowans ICCPPC {International Commission of Catholic Prison Pastoral Care} http://iccppc.org/executive-board/
Meeting of the Parliament 18 March 2010
http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=5526&mode=html
Report from Sr. Anna Tommasi from Malawi on her visit to Scotland as a result of chaplain Miss Patricia Roberts spending some time in Malawi.
A visit to Scotland was completely out of my dreams, but God’s plans are full of surprises, sometimes pleasant to our human taste, sometimes hard to accept. It was a great joy to meet Fr. Brian Gowans, Vice President of ICCPPC, in his own country. Together we went to the Scottish Parliament and after a guided visit we had lunch with two Scottish Members of Parliament whom I had accompanied in a visit to Zomba Maximum Security Prison and Chichiri Prison here in Malawi. Mr Michael Mathieson and Mrs Maureen Watt welcomed us to have lunch with them although it was a very busy and important day in Parliament.
With Fr Brian I also visited two very special prisons: Polmont Young Offenders, where he was chaplain for some years, and Castle Huntly Open Estate, where he is working at present.
External Affairs Minster announced the successful applicants for £7m of funding of projects in Malawi including grants to Christian Aid and Tearfund. In a subsequent Chamber debate Michael Matheson highlighted the work of Father Brian Gowans, a prison chaplain with SPS and expressed a desire to see work moving forward between the SPS and the Malawian Prison
I qualified in Social Work in 1974 and in 1993 was awarded the degree of Master of Philosophy (Child Protection Studies) at Dundee University. My professional career has been spent in child and public protection both in the local authority and until early 2008 with Lothian and Borders Police as Executive Officer of Edinburgh, Lothian and Borders Child Protection Office. I am currently National Manager of Stop it Now! Scotland – the national programme for the prevention of child sexual abuse.
I serve on a wide range of national and Government Working Parties on Child and Public Protection including as Chair of the National Steering Group for Safeguarding in Sport; Vice Convenor of the Scottish Parliament Cross Party Group on Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse; Chair of the Safeguarding Commission of the Conference of Religious in Scotland; member of the Police Scotland Offender Management Strategy Group; member of the National Investigative Interviewing Strategic Oversight Group and Chair of the Joint Investigative Interviewing Practice and Development Group. Until April 2013 I was also Safeguarding Adviser to the Catholic Archiocese of St Andrew’s and Edinburgh and Chair of the Archdiocesan Risk Management Group. In 2011 I was a member of a small delegation of safeguarding experts which met with His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to discuss safeguarding in the Catholic Church.
I have been a visiting lecturer/consultant at the Scottish Police College for over 20 years, a training provider to the Jusicial Institute and am a member of the Scottish Executive Committee of the National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers.
I have delivered training programmes to law enforcement and other agencies across Eastern Europe and Scandinavia and tom conferences and events in Europe and the USA.
Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh
The Ordination to the Diaconate of Jamie McMorrin, 3 May 2015, Scots College, Rome.
With Deacon Jamie and Archbishop Cushley are the priests of the Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh present at today’s Mass in Rome: Fr Nicky Welsh, Fr Brian Gowans, Fr Scott Deeley, Fr Michael John Galbraith, Fr Daniel Doherty, Fr Kevin Douglas and Fr Andrew Garden.
Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh
Archbishop Leo Cushley Emeritus Bishops Keith O’Brien,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Archdiocese_of_St_Andrews_and_Edinburgh
Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh
Martin Henry May 26th, 2015 at 11:42 am
It really is remarkable on so many levels how deeply ignorance runs in the
Catholic Church. Commenting on any lesbian and gay issues is not a matter of
“sexual morality” since being gay or lesbian isn’t a thing a person DOES but
what a person IS. It is an identity not an activity. Every time the clergy
open their mouths on these matters they effectively condemn PEOPLE not actions
and it is this that has been their downfall…their complete inability to
understand this simple fact. But even if the discussion was about gay sex (with which the church appears to be preoccupied) the doctrinal position that all sexual activity outside
heterosexual intercourse within marriage and capable of conception is of course so utterly absurd, so unnatural, that it really beggars belief. Sexual behaviour that is predicated on consent, care, growth, reciprocity and authenticity is a dynamic of Creation – whether or not it is capable of be getting children. If it is part of Creation it is part of God. …. or at least the vernacular of God. And this leads to the stupidest stumbling block of them all….the Church’s utterly unfounded and ridiculous notion that
homosexuality is a choice. This idea seems to have been plucked out of nowhere and is so remote from any scientific or human reality that it is the modern equivalent of believing the world is flat. No wonder even older Catholics are turning away. The Church continually fails to connect with ALL our lives … not just young people. In a world where the Good News is so desperately needed the Church instead gives nothing but bad news in spade loads. Sounding more like a bitter doctrine of hate the Church’s teachings, as well as many who espouse them, have become toxic. The words of bishops are often now like vinegar to the wounds of Christ….spiteful, vindictive, and cruel. I am taking a long rest from my faith and it is doing me a power of good…..the less rubbish I have to listen to the more God’s voice is audible. So the Irish people have done the right thing…..not for their gay citizens but for everyone….they have asserted a new freedom….the ability to think, and choose, and act for themselves.
Martin Henry. Edinburgh
- Martin Henry is connected closely with James Rennie head of a large paedophile network and is convenor of his Board
- He went on to run Stop it Now having access to young paedophiles
- He contacted Ilene asking for contacts with young men for a BBC programme that doesn’t exist
- He is actively involved in the archdiocese in Edinburgh – Cardinal O’Brien
- He was able to become actively involved with the police (LOTHIAN & BORDERS)
- Friends with Father Brian Gowans also connected to Archdiocese in Edinburgh
- Father Brian Gowans worked in St Frances Xavier possible 1985
- John abuse case choirboys St Francis Xavier
- Brian Gowans close to the justice minister
SOURCES
- http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=4359&mode=html https://archive.is/GVzNc
- https://spidercatweb.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/martin-henry.docx
- http://cos.churchofscotland.org.uk/blogs/church_and_society/2012/11/23/making-it-last/
It has been claimed that a witness stated “it’s still going on” (it meaning the paedophile ring) & that Martin Henry (man in the shiny suit at parliament film on you tube) is the top man. THE ringleader
Martin Henry runs STOP IT NOW which is a “course” thingy for YOUNG PAEDOPHILES!
Stuart Allardyce, is the National Manager of Stop it Now! in Scotland & oh look, Lothian & Borders police AGAIN
Martin Henry is pals with Father Gowans… Gowans works in Polmont & is pals wi Father O’Brien
(left pic) Father Denis O’Connell thumbing a lift in the PRIVATE PLANE of HIBS OWNER & one of Scotland’s Richest men, Sir Tom Farmer
Farmer owned 90% of Hibernian, He invested nearly £3 million to rescue the club from receivership and he continued to fund developments of Easter Road
Farmer was made a Knight Commander with Star of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, a high honour that the Catholic Church can bestow on a layman. He was also knighted by Lizzy in 1997.
He’s a supports charity Mary’s meals https://www.marysmeals.org.uk
Funnily enough, Mary’s Meals popped up here too… (see right pic above) http://www.parliament.scot/gd/newsandmediacentre/17330.aspx
In 2006, Farmer donated £100,000 to the SNP to help fund their campaign for the 2007 Scottish Parliament general election. Farmer commented at the time that it was not an indication of his political allegiance but that he wanted the SNP to be able to compete financially with their better-funded political opponents. Farmer repeated his endorsement for the SNP in the 2011 election.
Talking SNP, apparently Alex Salmond was “SADDENED” at O’Briens resignation
Which I must admit, I find a tad odd.
The bloke ADMITTED he’s a paedo!! Surely Salmond should been pleased O’Brien was no longer in such a powerful position? But he obviously wasn’t as he couldn’t wait to sing his praises, even going so far as to pay tribute to Cardinal Keith O’Brien following his resignation
Oooh, & going back to the Hibs subject for a second, what about Hibernian Chairman Rod Petries? What does he know about O’Brien being a CHILD RAPIST? Cause he was SO PALLY wi Keith O’Brien (who was a regular at Easter Road) that they christened Hibernian “O’Briens 11”
He loves his Footie & his First Ministers doesn’t he?? Coincidentally, football & politics are the two places that PAEDO ARE FREE TO RUN RIOT RAPING KIDS!
Father Denis O’Connell was bestest friends with Savile who he originally got to know through mummy Savile. Jimmy was a frequent visitor to the Parish of St Patrick’s in Kilsyth during the period when he had a hit TV show ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ or was in between presenting ‘Top of the Pops’ or hosting a show on Radio 1 . You could always tell when he was in Kilsyth as his white jaguar car was parked outside the Parish House. Denis O’Connell fairly got about, working in Edinburgh, Kilsyth, Lennoxtown, Aberdeen & Methil in Fife. He also worked for the BBC in London! (BBC?! NUFF SAID!)
Kilsyth Chronicle 1972
The website I got a lot of the pictures from has unfortunately removed a lot of the Savile ones. BUT the didn’t remove the description!! Which I screen-shotted & archived
SAVILE, O’CONNELL & CELTIC’s JOCK STEIN
CELTIC PAEDO
As stated at the start we have one of the paedo ring NEIL STRACHAN 41,
“Jailed for 3 yrs in 1997 for repeatedly molesting a boy. former Celtic Boys Club official started preying on the boy when he was only five, after befriending his parents. Strachan quit as secretary of Celtic East Boys Club after he was caught. The abuse had gone on for two years, shared a flat with partner Colin Slaven”
https://www.scotsman.com/news/horror-upon-horror-that-unfolded-in-worst-ever-abuse-trial-1-1037439 https://archive.is/dpkid
Strachan, oddly enough, just like Rennie, ALSO had his original sentence slashed http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-13458501 https://archive.is/FNReX
We also have
14.04.17 Ex Celtic Boys Club Coach & Chairman GERARD KING suspended from job as PRIMARY SCOOL TEACHER amid child abuse charges https://spidercatweb.blog/2017/04/14/celtic-school-teacher-csa-paedo/
King was at Celtic Boys Club with JIM TORBETT, who got two years’ jail in 1998 for abusing three former players, including future Scotland striker Alan Brazil, between 1967 and 1974.
Torbett was said to have been sacked from the club in 1974 when allegations surfaced against him. But this week, fresh claims were made that he abused more youngsters after returning to Celtic Boys Club for a spell in the 1980s and 90s. He denies the new allegations.
King also worked at Torbett’s company, the Trophy Centre, but denies being close to him.
He said: “Everybody has got different teams. I worked there for about a year but only on a Saturday afternoon.”
About his time as chairman of the boys’ club, he said: “That was about eight years ago. We left that to the younger ones – we did our stint.”
King’s association with Celtic Boys Club dates back to the early 1980s. In 1982-83, he helped run the under-12 team which won an invitational event in Rotterdam, Holland.
05.05.17 PAEDO JIM TORBET ARRESTED & DETAINED https://spidercatweb.blog/2017/05/05/paedophile-former-youth-coach-jim-torbett-kicked-out-of-america/
& we also have JIM MCCAFFERTY (above left) who confessed to committing sexual acts with several young footballers in the 80s & 90s https://spidercatweb.blog/2016/12/07/jim-mccafferty-admits-footballpaedo/
And HUGH STEVENSON (above right)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-38208329 https://archive.is/N15r7
20.09.17 The Child protection chief at one of Scotland’s top boys’ football clubs has resigned amid claims that bullying was ignored by bosses.
Jim Stewart quit Celtic Boys Club after recommending sanctions against a coach, which he claims were ignored. https://spidercatweb.blog/2017/09/20/child-protection-chief-at-one-of-scotlands-top-boys-football-clubs-has-resigned/ https://archive.is/SPW6H
So, to summarise CELTIC PAEDO
we have KEVIN KELLY & JOCK STEIN BOTH reported to have KNOWN & done nothing & BOTH of whom were pals wi SAVILE. We also have GERARD KING, JIM TORBETT, JIM MCCAFFERTY, HUGH STEVENSON & NEIL STRACHAN
& STRACHAN LINKS MARTIN HENRY TO THE CELTIC PAEDO RING THROUGH JAMES RENNIE WHO HENRY WORKED ALONGSIDE FOR YEARS AT LGBT OFFICE IN EDINBURGH
& HENRY IS HEADING THE FOOTBALL ABUSE INQUIRY
NUFF SAID! & IF THAT ISN’T ENOUGH, THERE’S A WITNESS CLAIMING HENRY IS THE LEADER OF THE RING…
SOURCES & READ MORE
https://scepticpeg.wordpress.com/2016/12/05/celtics-seedy-past/
- https://spidercatweb.blog/2016/11/25/112553/ https://archive.is/BTmJt
- https://themanthebheastscanttame.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/page/20/
- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2288260/Disgraced-cardinal-Keith-OBrien-facing-possible-police-investigation-emerges-church-officials-told-live-hermit.html https://archive.is/liDm3
- http://www.vanguardbears.co.uk/article.php?i=30&a=the-celtic-scandal—silence-is-no-longer-an-option https://archive.is/yyvaI
- http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/cardinal-keith-obrien-friends-sex-1731381https://archive.is/vHtJT
- http://saintpatrickskilsyth.org.uk/saintpatricks/new_histories_canon_o_connell.htm
Going back to Stop It Now for a sec, (remembering Martin Henry runs STOP IT NOW which is a “course” thingy for YOUNG PAEDOPHILES!)
Founder was Lucy FAITHFULL Lucy Faithfull Foundation more about lucy faithfull
http://www.judithniechcial.com/lucy_faithfull.html
Is she, as I believe, a relative of Marianne Faithfull? I can’t find/haven’t found any details of her family other than she was born in S.Africa in 1910 to a nurse and an army officer. Reason i wonder if they are related is because the Faithfull’s are a BIZARRE family, & when I say bizarre, I mean it in an utter bastards kinda way!!
Marianne’s maternal grandfather had aristocratic roots, in the Habsburg Dynasty, & her maternal grandmother was Jewish.
Marianne’s great great uncle was Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the 19th century Austrian nobleman whose erotic novel, Venus in Furs, spawned the word masochism!!
Her grandfather invented a sexual device called a Frigidity Machine that was designed to give women orgasms. He tried it out on her mother, Eva, Baroness Erisso, a dancer and actress descended from the Sacher-Masoch long line of Austro-Hungarian aristocrats.
Marianne’s father was Major Robert Glynn Faithfull
Marianne’s father was also an MI6 agent and he just so happened to be the “interrogation officer” in charge of Himmler after Himmler had given himself up to my Grandad!! Himmler was alive & well for HOURS with my Grandad, but he was dead VERY quickly as soon as RG Faithfull & co got hold of him!! Isn’t it amazing that whilst RG & Himmler were inside the SPECIALLY PREPARED HOUSE, the cyanide capsule that WAS NOT in Himmlers mouth, not only managed to kill him but also broke his nose too?!!
You can read more about Himmler’s death here & more about Marianne & co here
Even more Marianne (she crops up ALL THE TIME!) Marianne Faithfull: I haven’t forgiven UK for Redlands & MICK JAGGER: PAEDO – SATANIST?
Savile & Fort Augustus Abbey {Catholic Boarding School}
Sins of our fathers https://youtu.be/DgAag_p4PCs
Disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien, a good friend of Savile’s, was also a regular visitor at the school.
SAVILE & O’BRIEN BOTH “FREQUENTED” FORT AUGUSTUS ABBEY
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/jimmy-savile-regular-visitor-catholic-2111397 https://archive.is/cFqfm
21 Dec 2015 SAVILE & THE PAEDO PRIESTS OF FORT AUGUSTUS
https://spidercatweb.blog/2015/12/21/paedo-priests-fort-augustus/
Victim claims abuse on Manchester United trip
10 November 2017
A 61-year-old man from Glasgow has told the BBC he was sexually abused on a football trip to Manchester United in the late 1960s.
James, who wants to keep his anonymity, believes he was “trafficked” to English football clubs by the Marist Brothers, a Catholic order which ran his school.
He said he was repeatedly abused by the brothers at his primary school.
In a statement, Manchester United said it had found no information relating to the Marist Brothers in its review.
The Old Trafford club looked into historical abuse as part of the English FA’s inquiry, led by barrister Clive Sheldon QC.
It is looking at the way clubs or the FA dealt with concerns over child sex abuse between 1970 and 2005.
Initiation ceremony
However, James said he thought his abuse happened on a trip in 1969, when he was 12 or 13.
James told the BBC he was in a group of “elite” young footballers who were selected by his school to take part in a tournament in Manchester.
The boys were taken to Old Trafford and the club’s training ground, where they played matches and toured the stadium, the boot room and directors’ offices.
James said he had visions of becoming a Manchester United player like his heroes George Best and Bobby Charlton but he said he was taken from the hostel where the boys were staying and sexually abused.
He said he did not know who abused him but he was taken outside as part of an “initiation ceremony”.
“It was non-consensual sex,” he said.
“Adult and a child.”
James said he did not know if other young footballers were also abused.
“None of us ever spoke about it,” he said.
According to James, he was not aware at the time that it was abuse.
It was portrayed as part of the “football journey” of going down to the club and possibly becoming a professional footballer.
He said: “I believe I was forced to do it because of my previous experience. I thought there was no escape, I had to take the action.”
His previous abuse was at the hands of the Marist Brothers who ran his primary school, the Sacred Heart Primary School in the east end of Glasgow.
James said he was regularly beaten around the lower body by branches with thorns, belts or by hand for not knowing the answers to questions about the Mass.
He told the BBC he would soil himself when he was beaten and his sister would be sent for to take him out of class.
Grooming process
“That then led to an increase in the abuse which began by befriending you, telling you that you weren’t a bad person, you were a good person,” he said.
“All part of the grooming process, then on to sitting on the knee,.
“Then, after the beatings, removing the clothing to make sure there were no marks.
“And then other sexual activity.”
The beatings stopped when James moved to high School.
But a more sinister form of abuse began, he said.
James said he was sent for a “holiday” to Fort Augustus school in the Highlands where BBC Scotland has uncovered evidence that widespread abuse took place.
He was also sent to Pluscarden Abbey. Both were run by the Benedictine order.
He said he was abused by monks there.
James said he was also abused when his football team were sent to English football clubs.
“I realise now I was trafficked,” he said.
“I didn’t realise that at the time.
“But there is a link between the abuse in the primary school – the Marist Brothers.
“A link to the Marist Brothers sending me to Fort Augustus and Pluscarden to the Benedictines and the Marist Brothers then sending me to the football clubs.”
He said: “My understanding was these clubs were more or less looking at us for potentially signing for the clubs.
“The type of player I was playing football with went on to be professional football players, to be professional football managers and professional coaches at the highest level in the Scottish Football Association.”
Internal investigation
Manchester United said: “We have no knowledge or records of any allegations of this nature.
“However, If we are provided with further details and they allege involvement of anyone connected with the club, we will of course investigate further and involve all appropriate authorities.”
The Marist Brothers no longer run schools in Scotland but they maintain a house in Glasgow.
In a statement the order’s lawyers said it took all allegations against it seriously, and referred them to police and an internal investigation.
It said: “The allegations in question were investigated by the police, and the Scottish Catholic Safeguarding Service confirmed our clients have done all that is possible regarding the allegations made.”
“James wants the public to know about the scandal of the historic trafficking of children round the UK.
“He wants more survivors of sexual abuse to come forward so that the perpetrators of this abuse and the institutions that protected them are held to account and we will continue to support him as he campaigns to achieve this.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-41926783
Another Fort Augustus paedophile priest:
Priest, Father Paul Moore , convicted 20 years after first confessing
14 March 2018
An 82-year-old Catholic priest who confessed to his bishop more than 20 years ago that he had abused young boys has finally been convicted.
Father Paul Moore has been found guilty of sexually abusing three children and a student priest in crimes spanning more than 20 years.
One of his victims was just five years old.
A BBC Scotland investigation reported five years ago that Moore had admitted in 1996 that he had abused more than one boy years earlier, and it was initially covered up by the bishop.
The then Bishop of Galloway, Maurice Taylor, did not contact the authorities about the priest’s confession until eight months later. Instead, he sent him to a treatment centre in Toronto.
Bishop Taylor removed the priest from his parish in Prestwick, Ayrshire, and later sent him to Fort Augustus Abbey in the Highlands, which was run by Benedictine monks.
The attached school was by this time closed, but the abbey remained open. That is where Moore joined monk Richard White – who was also a self-confessed paedophile, later jailed for five years for child abuse.
The 2013 BBC documentary Sins of Our Fathers told how Moore was still living in a house which was purchased by the church.
Bishop Taylor said Moore had told him about actions that “occurred years previously”, and that the priest was removed from the pastoral ministry after the admission.
The bishop said: “The initial advice I was given was that since no allegations had been made against Moore but that he had made personal admission to me, I didn’t need to inform the authorities.”
The bishop said he arranged a meeting with the procurator fiscal in Kilmarnock in November 1996.
He said: “The Crown Office informed us in 1999 that they had decided not to proceed with any action but the case remained open.”
It was only when the victims came forward after the BBC documentary that the criminal case was brought.
n 2013, the BBC revealed claims by a former altar boy that he had been abused by Moore.
Two years later, Paul Smyth waived his anonymity to speak to a follow-up investigation.
He said: “I just want people to know the truth, I’m not running away any more.”
Mr Smyth told the BBC how he’d been sexually assaulted on Irvine beach when he was 11.
He eventually told the police what happened in 1997, the year after Moore apparently admitted the abuse to Bishop Taylor.
n 2013, the BBC revealed claims by a former altar boy that he had been abused by Moore.
Two years later, Paul Smyth waived his anonymity to speak to a follow-up investigation.
He said: “I just want people to know the truth, I’m not running away any more.”
Mr Smyth told the BBC how he’d been sexually assaulted on Irvine beach when he was 11.
He eventually told the police what happened in 1997, the year after Moore apparently admitted the abuse to Bishop Taylor.
Also in the 2015 follow-up, the BBC revealed a second man, another former altar server and now in his late 40s, was abused by Moore for several years as a teenager in Ayrshire.
The investigation obtained a copy of a £10,000 cheque given to the man by Moore in 2009.
Moore denied the cheque was “hush money” and says it was meant as a loan.
When confronted, Moore denied that he had confessed any child abuse to Bishop Taylor.
He accepted he was aware the man had made allegations against him, and was asked if he accepted that a payment to an alleged victim may look like “hush money”.
He responded: “Sure, it looks now, I realise that now in these times but it’s not that, it wasn’t hush money.
“In the Bible it says lend without hope of getting things back… as far as I’m concerned he can keep it.”
Asked if the two men were lying about the abuse claims, Moore said: “No, they’re not lying. They think that’s what it is. But it’s not.”
The court case also heard from another man, now in his 40s, who told how Moore sexually assaulted him at St Mark’s primary school in Irvine in 1976.
Nowadays that crime would have been classed as rape.
Another man told of an occasion when he was abused at Irvine’s Magnum Centre when he was still a child.
Moore was ordained in 1960 and served in six different parishes in the south west of Scotland before retirement.
In 1995, he abused a student priest and around the same time he was found to have repeatedly stared at the bodies of young boys in Prestwick swimming pool.
Soon after this he made his confession to the bishop.
Bishop Taylor, who is now 92, appeared in court and said Moore had admitted to him in 1996 that he had a desire to abuse minors and he knew it was wrong.
He spoke of abusing boys while they slept and others at a swimming pool.
The bishop was shown personnel records he had taken in 1996 when Moore asked to see him.
He told the bishop he had sexual involvement with two males who had been underage at the time.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-43398633
SAVILE & BAY CITY ROLLERS, Therefore TAM PATON
All that does make me wonder,
WHO WAS SAVILE’S SCOTTISH ACCOMPLICE? https://archive.is/XzCrh
Above is a conversation between myself & a VERY reliable source & I believe him 100%. view tweet 11:21 PM – Oct 19, 2016 https://archive.is/tM54W
Walton Hop, Tam Paton, Chris Denning & Jonathan King
- https://spidercatweb.blog/2016/07/18/80-articles-paton-rollers-walton-hop/
- https://spidercatweb.blog/2016/07/08/tam-paton/
- https://spidercatweb.blog/2016/10/07/chris-denning-ex-radio-1-dj-jailed-for-13-years/
- https://spidercatweb.blog/2016/10/17/bay-city-rollers-paton-denning-drugs-paedo-money/
- There is heaps of articles etc under #TamPaedoPaton
Now that is definitely a ring!!! & from what i have found so far, it goes several ways from there
SIR NIKKI & CO & FETTESGATE
THE SCOTTISH RITUAL ABUSE SURVIVOR & THE VIP https://youtu.be/wcrCEU1nSeg
- SIR Nikki Fairbairn & Robert Ewart Henderson QC
https://spdercatweb.blog/2016/03/06/robert-ewart-henderson-qc/
- THE HORRIFYING TRUTH – NIKKI FAIRBAIRN
http://mooglemeow.blogspot.com.br/2014/08/revealed-full-horrifying-truth-about.html https://archive.is/0hBqC
- http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13174992.Former_judge_s_shock_over_QC_paedophile_ring_allegations/https://archive.is/iKHlh
- Circles & Rings: Major, Minor & Magic
https://spidercatweb.blog/2016/07/08/major-minor-magic/
- Prestigious boarding school at centre of abuse probe. FETTES
- Tony blair, Knox Cunningham, Fettes & Kincora
- ‘Magic circle’ judge asked to resign for allowing homosexual activities to be conducted in public way
https://spidercatweb.blog/2017/01/03/magic-circle-judge-asked-to-resign/
- Fairbairn Elm Guesthttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698634/Esther-Rantzen-My-shock-MP-lovers-links-Elm-House-paedophile-ring.html https://archive.is/KKv3p
- Kitty, Savile & Elm Guest/ grafton closehttps://youtu.be/gqtPxpa_Q-c
NICOLA, NICHOLAS & ESTHER https://vidoepress.com/v/hReer2RQ
SCOTTISH CHILD ABUSE & MURDER DOT 2 DOT https://youtu.be/INkGlmrpvYs
Convicted paedo Jefferey Epstein’s wee black book has Fairbairn’s daughter Charlotte listed.
.DOT JOINING: Scottish VIP Paedophile ring
https://spidercatweb.blog/2017/07/28/dot-joining-scottish-vip-paedophile-ring/
FERRIS, THE GODFATHER, IAN BRADY & THE KRAYS (& FETTESGATE!)
- Paul Ferris & The Krays
https://spidercatweb.blog/2017/06/06/paul-ferris-the-krays/
- Glasgow Gangsters Part 2: Ferris
https://spidercatweb.blog/2017/05/30/glasgow-gangsters-part-2-paul-ferris/
- KING RAT: The Godfather, The Krays, Massey, Domenyk & Paedo
- SCOTLAND, GANGSTERS & SECURITY SERVICES
https://spidercatweb.blog/gangsters/
- Glasgow’s gangsters: Arthur Thompson – the Godfather
https://spidercatweb.blog/2017/04/28/glasgows-gangsters-arthur-thompson-the-godfather/
Robin Cook, Gordon Brown, Ian Dunn & P.I.E
https://spidercatweb.blog/2016/11/20/robin-cook-p-i-e-member/
esther’s links to paedo
- FAIRBAIRN – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698634/Esther-Rantzen-My-shock-MP-lovers-links-Elm-House-paedophile-ring.html
- TOLD ESTHER https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/984731/abuse-campaigner-i-told-esther-rantzen-about-paedo-jimmy-savile-18-years-ago/
- SAVILE & THE BBC / SAVILE REPORT “Esther Rantzen heard that Savile was sexually interested in young girls. She first heard about him in the 1970s from a researcher who had come from the BBC from a job in Fleet Street. She heard that the people making a programme about Savile in the ITV series This is Your life had wished to include the parents of a young girl with heart problems for whom Savile had provided financial help. The parents refused to allow that and she said the implication was there was another side to it, which was a darker side. But, she said, this rumour was one of many which ‘swirled around’ at the time in respect of all sorts of famous people.” https://spidercatweb.blog/2016/01/30/bbcs-10m-whitewash-of-savile-scandal-report-clears-tv-chiefs/
- ESTHER’S POOL PAEDO http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/man-convicted-of-sex-assault-on-girl-5-in-swimming-pool-guest-at-holiday-home-of-child-abuse-1414750.html
- ESTHER & THE PAEDO TEACHER
https://twitter.com/thewakeupcall09/status/850285577526272000 https://archive.is/r6CD2
- BEN FELLOWS https://youtu.be/CMC_QLaoqMo
- MUST READ! Ken Clarke, Esther, Kray Twins & Jewish Underground
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com.br/2012/10/ken-clarke-esther-rantzen-kray-twins.html https://archive.is/ARHGk
READ MORE https://spidercatweb.blog/2016/10/29/esther-rantzen-here-to-help-scottish-kids/
Moira Anderson, Gallogley, Gartshore, Willie McRae & The Untouchables
https://spidercatweb.blog/2016/06/21/moira-gallogley-gartshore-williemcrae-untouchables/
HANDS UP ALL THOSE WHO ARE DEAD!
Brady, Hindley, Glasgow Godfather, Savile, Krays, Robert Black & More
https://spidercatweb.blog/2017/05/16/hands-up-whos-dead/
ROBERT BLACK
- ROBERT BLACK: What happened to innocent until PROVEN guilty? https://spidercatweb.blog/2016/06/05/robert-black/
- Could Robert Black Be Innocent Of Murder? https://spidercatweb.blog/2016/05/30/could-robert-black-be-innocent-of-murder/
Tommy Tague https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommy-tague-571aa671/
- Tague Manson Consultancy Ltd. Scotland. Jan 2015 – Present. International. International training, investigations and consultancy
- Project Coordinator Stop it Now Scotland. Dec 2013 – Present. Edinburgh. Breaking the Links – group work programme targeting males convicted or arrested for sexual offences involving children.
- Safeguarder Children Ist. Aug 2013 – Present.Central Scotland. Independent Safeguarder Childrens Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011
- Trainer AECT UAE Aug 2014 – Sep 2014 United Arab Emirates. Delivery of National Intelligence Model to the the five Northern Emirates(Ajman, Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain).
- Detective Superintendent SCDEA (SICU) Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency. Dec 2009 – Dec 2012. Livingston/ Paisley
- Head of the Scottish Intelligence Coordination Unit– SOCG Mapping, Human Trafficking, Prison Intelligence Unit, Scottish Tasking and Coordination Group. Member of SCDEA Senior Management Team, Authorising Officer and OIC SCDEA Intelligence Development Unit.
- Chief Inspector Lothian and Borders Police 2008 – 2009 Livingston Operational leadership in critical incidents including high risk missing persons,firearms incidents and murders. Head of Community Teams including funded officers from West Lothian Council.
- Detective Chief Inspector Lothian and Borders Police2006 – 2008. Fettes HQ. Deputy Head of Special Branch Force HQ, including Edinburgh Airport.
- Detective Chief Inspector Lothian and borders Police 2004 – 2006. Head of Crime Investigations City of Edinburgh.
- Detective Inspector Lothian and Borders Police 2002 – 2004 Edinburgh/West Lothian
William Manson https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-manson-a9585741/
Company Director Tague Manson Consultancy Ltd Jan 2015 – Present Scotland International training, investigations and consultancy. We provide bespoke training, investigation, case review and consultancy. We have experience in the development and delivery of training to police, local authorities and businesses in the UK. Asia, Western Australia and the Middle East. http://www.taguemanson.com
- project manager Stop It Now! Scotland 2011 – Present Scotland
- National MAPPA Coordinator Scottish Government 2009 – 2011 ScotGov
- Detective Superintendent Lothian and Borders Police 2007 – 2009
- Detective Chief Inspector Lothian and Borders Police 2002 – 2007 Edinburgh
- Detective Chief Inspector Lothian and Borders Police 1999 – 2002 West Lothian
- Chief Inspector Scottish Police College 1996 – 1999 Kincardine
- Detective Chief Inspector Lothian and Borders Police 1996 – 1996
- Detective Inspector Lothian and Borders Police 1993 – 1996
Bob Higgins: Ex-Southampton coach denies child abuse charges
Jan 4 2018
A former Southampton Football Club youth coach has pleaded not guilty to 50 counts of child abuse.
Bob Higgins, 64, is accused of carrying out indecent assaults on 24 boys between 1970 and 1996.
Mr Higgins, from Southampton, was the youth development officer at Southampton in the 1980s.
He was granted unconditional bail by a judge at Bournemouth Crown Court and is due to appear for trial at Salisbury Crown Court on 29 May.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-42564403
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-42564403
Former Crewe coach charged with indecently assaulting boy
3 Jan 2018
A former Crewe Alexandra football coach has appeared in court charged with six counts of indecent assault.
Paul McCann, 57, appeared at South Cheshire Magistrates’ Court in Crewe to face the charges relating to a boy under 16 and a boy over 16.
All the allegations relate to one victim and are alleged to have taken place between 1987 and 1990.
Mr McCann, of Great Sutton, Cheshire, spoke only to confirm his name, age and address during the brief hearing.
He was granted bail to appear before Chester Crown Court on 31 January.
earlier:
Another former coach from Crewe Alexandra, described as a “long-standing club stalwart” because of his work with their youth-team players, has been suspended by the Football Association.
Paul McCann worked for Crewe in the 1980s and 90s and at one stage was the assistant coach in charge of the club’s youth team.
Dario Gradi, Crewe’s former manager and currently director of football, has already been suspended and the FA has now informed McCann that he is not allowed to work in the sport in any capacity until he receives further notification.
McCann was involved at Crewe during Gradi’s time as manager, working with the reserve team, the youth setup and sometimes refereeing matches involving the younger children.
He left his voluntary role in December 1991 because he was working as a human resources director for Shell UK and had been given a new post in the Netherlands. McCann spent four years in that role and in two decades at Shell he also had a three-year spell in Australia. He has since had similar roles for Centrica and ISG and lives near Chester, with another base in London.
McCann said: “I have not done anything wrong. This process is in place to help the investigation take its due course. I am collateral damage.” Speaking at his home in Great Sutton, Cheshire, earlier he said he had worked for Crewe only as a voluntary coach and never received any payment. He is not coaching currently. The FA has not confirmed the suspension or the reason for it.
McCann is not thought to have worked for another professional football club in England but was involved at Crewe during the years when they were building their reputation for having one of the best production lines of young footballers in the country. One book chronicling Gradi’s long association with the club describes McCann as a “talented coach”, a “long-standing club stalwart” and “one of the key men behind reserve and youth-team football at Crewe”.
Gradi, 75, has held a number of senior positions at Crewe since 1983 but was notified by the FA on 25 November that he was being suspended with immediate effect. It is understood that relates to issues involving Crewe rather than, as initially reported, allegations that he visited the parents of a Chelsea youth-team player to “smooth over” a complaint of sexual assault against Eddie Heath, the chief scout who has been identified as a repeat offender in the 1970s.
Gradi, then in his early 30s, was assistant manager at Chelsea at the time and is said to have told the 15-year-old victim’s family that he knew Heath was “closer” to boys than he should have been. Chelsea never took any action against Heath and the FA’s independent inquiry intends to interview Gradi about what the club knew, and his own particular role.
Gradi has not commented on his suspension but he has always said he did not know of anything untoward at Crewe and the allegations involving Heath were put to him two weeks ago.
“Aside from denying any wrongdoing, it would be inappropriate and unfair on all parties to comment piecemeal through the media at this time in connection with historic allegations,” he said in a statement at the time. “Suffice to say, I will do everything within my power to assist all investigatory authorities into what is becoming a wide-ranging and important enquiry into historic sexual abuse.”
Another former Crewe coach, Barry Bennell, is due to appear at Chester Crown Court next Wednesday to face eight charges of sexual offences against a boy, aged under 15, from another club, from 1981 to 1985.
The FA inquiry will be led by the QC Clive Sheldon and a backup team of investigators to go through what has been described as a “tidal wave” of people coming forward since Andy Woodward’s interview in the Guardian on 16 November, followed by that of another former Crewe player Steve Walters, instigated what the FA’s chairman, Greg Clarke, has described as the worst crisis he can remember in the sport.
At the last count, from figures released on 21 December, 155 potential suspects had been identified in connection with possible attacks throughout the sport on 429 people. Of those, some of the victims were as young as four, and 148 clubs from professional and amateur level have been named.
The allegations being investigated by police span more than five decades and a national sexual abuse investigation called Operation Hydrant is coordinating to avoid duplication and ensure that information about potential offenders and victims is shared across the 43 forces in England and Wales. Police say they have received a 819 referrals, with 605 coming from a hotline set up by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in tandem with the FA.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jan/04/crewe-paul-mccann-suspended-fa
Former academy director’s file handed to CPS in football sexual abuse inquiry
• Kit Carson was academy director at Peterborough from 1993 to 2001
• Carson, who also worked at Cambridge and Norwich, was arrested in January
Police have submitted a file to the Crown Prosecution Service following the arrest of a hugely respected youth football coach on suspicion of child sexual offences.
“Kit” Carson, 74, whose real name is Michael Sean Carson, was arrested in Cambridge in January and questioned on suspicion of indecency with children and indecent assault.
Police had been working with two of Carson’s former clubs, Peterborough United and Cambridge United, since the football abuse scandal was broken by the Guardian last year.
Carson was academy director at Peterborough from 1993 to 2001. Players he worked with there went on to have careers in the Premier League. Carson left to become head of talent development at Cambridge United between 2001 and 2005.
Before Peterborough he was at Norwich City from 1983 until 1993. On his LinkedIn page, he described himself as a football consultant and scout for a Finnish club.
Police have not named Carson, referring to him only as a man in his 70s. But the force confirmed to the Guardian that a file had been sent to the CPS on the man.
One year after football’s child abuse scandal broke, stories are yet to be told
11 November 2017
It wasn’t easy at first to understand the numbers that were potentially involved. It still isn’t, to be honest, when the latest police figures are so mind-boggling – on average, five new victims coming forward every two days – but particularly so at the start, when Andy Woodward was preparing to go public and telling me he was certain there would be many others, hundreds even, who had experienced the same kind of childhood horrors.
What has happened since started as a trickle but quickly turned into what the Football Association chairman, Greg Clarke, has described as a tidal wave. At the time, however, I can remember going to Andy, on the day before publication, to make absolutely sure he was happy to put the numbers so high. His response was that it might even be higher. The story went out. “Difficult knowing how to introduce this one,” I wrote on Twitter. “He’s a brave man and, as of today, he is free of his secret.” And then we waited.
The first six came forward inside five days. By the end of the week it was 11. And on and on. This week brings up a year since Andy became the first former footballer to speak about the sexual abuse he had suffered and the latest police figures, 748 victims, make it easy to understand why at least one force has advertised for retired detectives to help the process of taking statements.
To put it in some kind of context, more football coaches and people connected with the sport, 285, have now been accused of molesting boys than the number of priests and brothers from the Boston archdiocese, 249, who were identified as part of the scandal unearthed by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team.
The victims come from all levels of football and, at the last count, 331 clubs had been “impacted”, meaning they had been named without necessarily being under investigation. Of the victims, 96% are male, the youngest being four years old, and the vast majority of cases happened in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, though some as far back as 1950. Operation Hydrant has had 2,028 referrals and all but 27 relate to football – the others involving basketball, rugby, gymnastics, martial arts, tennis, wrestling, golf, sailing, athletics, cricket and swimming.
It is a lot to take in and, as if all that was not shocking enough, the real number of victims will actually be significantly higher when the figures have not been updated since 28 September and there are so many others who have suffered the same kind of ordeals but chosen not to report what happened.
Many do not think it is worthwhile now their abusers – paedophiles such as Frank Roper, a coach in Blackpool’s junior system, and Eddie Heath, formerly the chief scout at Chelsea – are dead. Others have now reached an age where they have their own children and have elderly parents and, understandably, want to protect their families. Many don’t feel they have the strength to deal with the tortuous, often torturous, process of going through the courts when it can feel sometimes as if there are glaciers that move quicker than the British judicial system.
After a year on this story, I have spoken to almost as many victims who have chosen not to go to the police as those who have. The numbers, again, are frightening and some of the stories that are waiting to be told leave huge questions about what the clubs knew, and what they did about it.
A lot of those stories will have to be held back for now because of the cases being sub judice but suffice to say there is startling evidence of cover-ups, and warnings being ignored, at a number of clubs.
The negligence also appears to be related to money in some cases. One recurring theme is that the people in charge were often reluctant to rock the boat if the person under suspicion was good at his job, potentially making those clubs money. Of everything we have heard over the last year, that perhaps is the most galling part when you stop to think about the number of children it put at risk. Some big football clubs and well-known individuals are going to find it a hard stain to wash out.
Aston Villa certainly need to explain what precisely happened after they were notified about the crimes of Ted Langford, a part-time scout for the club, during the late 1980s and maybe we will also hear from Dario Gradi at some point about his own judgment over the years. Gradi was suspended from all football activities by the FA last November after claims that in his coaching days at Chelsea he visited the house of a 15-year-old youth-team player to “smooth over” a complaint of sexual assault against Heath. Gradi has always denied any wrongdoing but the suspension remains in place, almost a year on, and it is clear the FA wants to distance itself from a man who was once revered for his work in junior football. Gradi was given a lifetime contribution award in 2014 and inducted into the FA Licensed Coaches’ Club Hall of Fame. His photograph has been taken down from the walls of St George’s Park and his name has been removed from the relevant wall display.
Hopefully we will get some more answers when the FA’s independent inquiry, led by Clive Sheldon QC, is published and perhaps, in time, there will also be an explanation from Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, about why his organisation did not do more after the 1997 Dispatches documentary Soccer’s Foul Play made it clear there was a serious problem inside the sport.
Everybody within the game, the media included, needs to look at how this scandal was ignored for so long. Yet the PFA, in particular, has much to answer for when, unlike the FA, it has had very little regime change at the highest level. Taylor has been there since 1981.
Sheldon’s report should be delivered at Easter and you might have seen the story recently about him seeing a counsellor, paid for by the FA, to look after his own mental health when he is being exposed to so many harrowing stories. Fair enough, but it is just a pity, perhaps, that the FA has not been so generous when it comes to the players whose lives have been shaped by the abuse. Many have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and still suffer from anxiety, depression, insomnia and panic attacks. They do at least have support groups such as the Offside Trust and SAVE but many have experienced what a hard-faced organisation the FA can be.
Equally, it might have been an idea if the FA had gone to any real effort to help the victims, or anyone else who might have vital information, to understand how to go about the process of speaking to the inquiry. That, after all, is surely the first starting point of any such investigation: to hear from as many people as possible. Yet if you were to click on the FA’s website – the place, you might imagine, where the process might be explained – there is nothing about it all.
Instead, the FA, acting independently of the barrister, has set up a convoluted and hard-to-locate system whereby the only way anyone can submit evidence is by clicking on the website for Sport Resolutions and going through a link named “Football Review”. Even then, it still doesn’t make it absolutely clear what it is. There isn’t even a helpline, just an email address for “written submissions” and no clues whatsoever why the FA should presume anyone would know this was how it worked.
It all feels so dreadfully typical of the FA and helps to explain why, by mid-October, Sheldon had interviewed no more than 15 victims. Clarke, who has described it as the biggest crisis in the history of the FA, claimed during his calamitous appearance before the House of Commons digital, culture, media and sport select committee recently that he had spent 22 hours a day working on the case when the story broke. Perhaps he needed a rest if this was the best he could come up with.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/nov/11/andy-woodward-one-year-on
Former football coach Barry Bennell has appeared in court ahead of his trial next year over a string of child sex allegations.
The 63-year-old appeared at Liverpool Crown Court via video link in a preliminary hearing ahead of his eight-week trial on January 8 next year.
He is charged with 55 offences, including 42 counts of indecent assault, 11 counts of buggery and two counts of attempted buggery said to have been committed on various dates between 1979 and 1991.
The allegations against the ex-Crewe Alexandra coach relate to 12 complainants.
During Friday’s hearing the court heard the defendant had previously changed his name to Richard Jones.
Honorary Recorder of Liverpool, Judge Clement Goldstone QC, said the defendant would now be referred to in the proceedings as Mr Jones.
A further pre-trial hearing will take place on November 24.
Six County FAs fail to respond to questions on football sex abuse
16 October 2017
The failure by some to cooperate with the independent review into the game’s child sexual abuse scandal was laid bare again on Monday night after it emerged six County Football Associations had not responded to requests for information five months after being asked to do so.
Following the revelation in May that eight professional clubs had missed two deadlines over four months to tell investigators what they knew, it transpired that six of the 46 County FAs had also ignored more than one attempt to contact them, putting them at risk of disciplinary action.
The inquiry team, led by Clive Sheldon QC, was forced last week to contact the Football Association itself to ask it to act over what one source branded “inertia” on the part of several counties, something that as of last night had the desired effect on only two out of the six in question.
They had originally been written to on May 11 and given a deadline of June 1 to respond, with those which failed to meet that contacted again on June 21.
The six outstanding counties were also sent reminders more recently to provide information which could be vital to an inquiry which is investigating what FA chairman Greg Clarke has admitted is the biggest crisis he could recall the game facing.
The probe will examine how it dealt with the alleged abuse of schoolboy players between 1970 and 2005, whether there was any cover-up, and even whether a paedophile ring operated in the game.
It also transpired that the final report by Sheldon had been delayed until at least Easter after the process of examining up to five million documents in an FA archive proved more arduous than anticipated.
Sheldon and his team, who had originally planned to report early next year, had also managed to interview only 15 survivors of abuse – there are 741 potential victims according to the most recent police figures – and 35 other persons of interest.
Alleged victims spoken to include former internationals, although sources refused to confirm whether Matt Le Tissier, David White and Paul Stewart – all of whom had gone public – had been among them.
Survivors’ stories were said to have been “harrowing”, with Sheldon and his team – as well as victims – requiring counselling as a result.
Meetings were planned yesterday with a further 20-30 survivors, as well as with other persons of interest, with the inquiry restricted in who it could talk to due to ongoing criminal investigations and the upcoming trials of former Crewe Alexandra coach Barry Bennell and ex-Southampton youth coach Bob Higgins.
Sources close to the investigation confirmed suspended Crewe director of football Dario Gradi – who denies covering up abuse claims – had been on a list of intended interviewees but refused to reveal whether he had been spoken to yet.
Former Aston Villa assistant manager Dave Richardson is also a person of interest after the inquiry was told by one victim, Tony Brien, that former England boss Graham Taylor was involved in a cover-up while at the club.
No one approached so far has openly refused to co-operate with the inquiry.
The Bennell and Higgins trials early next year could also limit either what Sheldon says about allegations against each of them in his report or what the FA is able to publish of his findings.
His report is likely to focus on case studies of 10-12 clubs to paint a picture of the game’s handling of claims of child abuse during the years covered by the inquiry, amid the impossibility of speaking to every potential victim and witness.
Police now investigating over 2,000 child abuse referrals in football
• Referrals relating to sports other than football reach a total of 27
The specialist police unit investigating child abuse in football has received 142 new referrals since publishing its last updated figures in June and is currently investigating complaints involving more than 330 clubs.
The figures released on Tuesday reveal that information forwarded by police forces to Operation Hydrant up to 28 September amount to 2,028 referrals, an increase of 142 on the previous figure at the end of June.
A total of 688 referrals came from the NSPCC with 1,340 from the police forces that were contacted. The statistics provided from Operation Hydrant reveal that a total of 331 clubs have been impacted since Andy Woodward’s interview in November sparked the now countrywide investigation.
The vast majority of referrals relate to football. However, a number of other sports have also been the subject of 27 referrals. These referrals include basketball, rugby, gymnastics, martial arts, tennis, wrestling, golf, sailing, athletics, cricket, and swimming.
Trial of ex-Celtic kit man on child sex abuse charges is delayed over medical report
September 16 2017
Late England boss Graham Taylor covered up claims of sexual abuse by a paedophile, inquiry told
Abuse victim Tony Brien says he told Taylor – who was Aston Villa manager at the time – about offense committed by a club scout
13 Sep 2017
Former England manager Graham Taylor covered-up the sexual abuse of young boys by a paedophile, it has been claimed.
The inquiry into child abuse in football has been told he discouraged at least two teenage players from making complaints.
Taylor, who died in January aged 72, was Aston Villa boss when he was told club scout Ted Langford was a paedophile.
Tony Brien, who was abused by Langford, said Taylor ignored warnings that youngsters were at risk.
Instead he claims the former Three Lions manager told him to “move on” in a phone call in 1987.
Brien, then aged 18, also said Taylor warned he would be taunted by fans if the sexual abuse became public knowledge.
The independent inquiry was told Langford abused boys at Villa after Taylor was warned about the dangers.
In 2002 Taylor was awarded the OBE, which was presented to him by the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, at Buckingham Palace.
A second player said Graham aylor visited him at home and discouraged him from taking a complaint against the scout further.
Langford worked for Villa until 1989, when he was sacked in the wake of other abuse allegations.
He was finally convicted of abusing boys in 2007, aged 66, and jailed for three years. He died in 2012.
Brien, now 48, played for Leicester, Chesterfield, Rotherham United, West Bromwich Albion and Hull City.
A statement he gave to police last December was passed onto the Football Association.
In it he claimed Langford abused him from the age of 12 in his Ford Granada at a Midlands golf course.
He said when he reported the abuse, Taylor and assistant manager Dave Richardson told him to keep quiet.
“They discouraged me from going forward and never offered me a chance to go to the police or anything like that,” he said.
The inquiry is investigating whether Villa failed to alert authorities about the child sexual abuse.
Watford was allegedly told that young boys were at risk
So far 741 alleged victims had come forward and 276 suspects had been identified as part of Operation Hydrant.
Aston Villa said they have “co-operated fully” with the ongoing FA investigation into historical abuse.
Richardson said he could not recall any conversation with Brien about alleged abuse.
He claims to have launched an investigation which resulted in Langford’s sacking after being told of “alarming allegations” in 1987.
Taylor went on to manage Watford under owner Elton John
Sir Elton John led the tributes to Taylor after his death from a suspected heart attack in January.
He led England to the 1992 European Championships and also managed Watford, Villa, Wolves and Lincoln.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/late-england-boss-graham-taylor-11164744
Taylor was a supporter of Sense-National Deafblind and Rubella Association and a Patron of DebRa. He was a Celebrity Ambassador for the Sense Enterprise Board in Birmingham, and worked to raise both funds and awareness, including running the London Marathon in 2004.[74] He regularly hosted moderated “online coaching seminars” on the DALnet channel. He also supported the Royal British Legion and cycled from London to Paris in 2010 to raise funds for the RBL’s Poppy appeal.[75]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Taylor
Debra charity
Graham Taylor charity work – Sense
1989 HRH The Princess Royal becomes Sense’s patron.
Celebrity Ambassadors include
Amitabh Bachchan (charity colleague of Keith Vaz)
Jay Rayner – son of Claire Rayner
Celebrity Supporters
Maureen Lipman (Champneys)
https://www.sense.org.uk/content/our-celebrity-ambassadors
Other charities that Graham Taylor supported:
Watford Football Club’s Community Sports and Education Trust’s patron, Graham Taylor OBE,
Football Foundation, Kit Aid and Peace Hospice, to name just a few.
https://www.watfordfccsetrust.co.uk/trust-statement-graham-taylor-obe
Jimmy Savile at the 2007 GNR with Alastair Campbell (Tony Blair’s former spin doctor)……and former sports minister Richard Caborn.
Football Foundation
Ambassador
Graham Taylor OBE
http://www.footballfoundation.org.uk/about-us/ambassadors/
Board of Trustees – inc
Richard Caborn
http://www.footballfoundation.org.uk/about-us/board-of-trustees/
Kit Aid
Finding a home for your unwanted football kit in Africa and beyond KitAid is a charity set up by, Derrick Williams MBE, who visited Tanzania on a WaterAid supporters’ trip in 1998. Derrick, being a mad footie fan, was amazed at the reception he received from children and adults in remote villages just because he wearing his favourite football shirt (Watford, Chesham Utd, Liverpool FC to name a few).
After two weeks in Tanzania, a flame was lit in Derrick’s heart and he was on a mission to provide kit and equipment to the bare-footed children playing with footballs made of tied string and plastic bags. Fifteen years on, KitAid has Graham Taylor OBE as its Patron, lots of volunteers and to date we’ve sent out 200,000 kits to children and adults in 40 different countries across the world.
Pictured: Derrick Williams MBE presenting Graham Taylor OBE with a commemorative shirt at KitAid’s 15th year anniversary event.
Peace Hospice
Her Royal Highness, Princess Michael of Kent is our Royal President
http://www.peacehospicecare.org.uk/page.asp?thepageID=259
Late England boss Graham Taylor covered up claims of sexual abuse by a paedophile, inquiry told
Abuse victim Tony Brien says he told Taylor – who was Aston Villa manager at the time – about offense committed by a club scout
13 Sep 2017
Former England manager Graham Taylor covered-up the sexual abuse of young boys by a paedophile, it has been claimed.
The inquiry into child abuse in football has been told he discouraged at least two teenage players from making complaints.
Taylor, who died in January aged 72, was Aston Villa boss when he was told club scout Ted Langford was a paedophile.
Tony Brien, who was abused by Langford, said Taylor ignored warnings that youngsters were at risk.
Instead he claims the former Three Lions manager told him to “move on” in a phone call in 1987.
Brien, then aged 18, also said Taylor warned he would be taunted by fans if the sexual abuse became public knowledge.
The independent inquiry was told Langford abused boys at Villa after Taylor was warned about the dangers.
In 2002 Taylor was awarded the OBE, which was presented to him by the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, at Buckingham Palace.
A second player said Graham aylor visited him at home and discouraged him from taking a complaint against the scout further.
Langford worked for Villa until 1989, when he was sacked in the wake of other abuse allegations.
He was finally convicted of abusing boys in 2007, aged 66, and jailed for three years. He died in 2012.
Brien, now 48, played for Leicester, Chesterfield, Rotherham United, West Bromwich Albion and Hull City.
A statement he gave to police last December was passed onto the Football Association.
In it he claimed Langford abused him from the age of 12 in his Ford Granada at a Midlands golf course.
He said when he reported the abuse, Taylor and assistant manager Dave Richardson told him to keep quiet.
“They discouraged me from going forward and never offered me a chance to go to the police or anything like that,” he said.
The inquiry is investigating whether Villa failed to alert authorities about the child sexual abuse.
Watford was allegedly told that young boys were at risk
So far 741 alleged victims had come forward and 276 suspects had been identified as part of Operation Hydrant.
Aston Villa said they have “co-operated fully” with the ongoing FA investigation into historical abuse.
Richardson said he could not recall any conversation with Brien about alleged abuse.
He claims to have launched an investigation which resulted in Langford’s sacking after being told of “alarming allegations” in 1987.
Taylor went on to manage Watford under owner Elton John
Sir Elton John led the tributes to Taylor after his death from a suspected heart attack in January.
He led England to the 1992 European Championships and also managed Watford, Villa, Wolves and Lincoln.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/late-england-boss-graham-taylor-11164744
Taylor was a supporter of Sense-National Deafblind and Rubella Association and a Patron of DebRa. He was a Celebrity Ambassador for the Sense Enterprise Board in Birmingham, and worked to raise both funds and awareness, including running the London Marathon in 2004.[74] He regularly hosted moderated “online coaching seminars” on the DALnet channel. He also supported the Royal British Legion and cycled from London to Paris in 2010 to raise funds for the RBL’s Poppy appeal.[75]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Taylor
Debra charity
Late England boss Graham Taylor covered up claims of sexual abuse by a paedophile, inquiry told
Abuse victim Tony Brien says he told Taylor – who was Aston Villa manager at the time – about offense committed by a club scout
13 Sep 2017
Former England manager Graham Taylor covered-up the sexual abuse of young boys by a paedophile, it has been claimed.
The inquiry into child abuse in football has been told he discouraged at least two teenage players from making complaints.
Taylor, who died in January aged 72, was Aston Villa boss when he was told club scout Ted Langford was a paedophile.
Tony Brien, who was abused by Langford, said Taylor ignored warnings that youngsters were at risk.
Instead he claims the former Three Lions manager told him to “move on” in a phone call in 1987.
Brien, then aged 18, also said Taylor warned he would be taunted by fans if the sexual abuse became public knowledge.
The independent inquiry was told Langford abused boys at Villa after Taylor was warned about the dangers.
In 2002 Taylor was awarded the OBE, which was presented to him by the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, at Buckingham Palace.
A second player said Graham aylor visited him at home and discouraged him from taking a complaint against the scout further.
Langford worked for Villa until 1989, when he was sacked in the wake of other abuse allegations.
He was finally convicted of abusing boys in 2007, aged 66, and jailed for three years. He died in 2012.
Brien, now 48, played for Leicester, Chesterfield, Rotherham United, West Bromwich Albion and Hull City.
A statement he gave to police last December was passed onto the Football Association.
In it he claimed Langford abused him from the age of 12 in his Ford Granada at a Midlands golf course.
He said when he reported the abuse, Taylor and assistant manager Dave Richardson told him to keep quiet.
“They discouraged me from going forward and never offered me a chance to go to the police or anything like that,” he said.
The inquiry is investigating whether Villa failed to alert authorities about the child sexual abuse.
Watford was allegedly told that young boys were at risk
So far 741 alleged victims had come forward and 276 suspects had been identified as part of Operation Hydrant.
Aston Villa said they have “co-operated fully” with the ongoing FA investigation into historical abuse.
Richardson said he could not recall any conversation with Brien about alleged abuse.
He claims to have launched an investigation which resulted in Langford’s sacking after being told of “alarming allegations” in 1987.
Taylor went on to manage Watford under owner Elton John
Sir Elton John led the tributes to Taylor after his death from a suspected heart attack in January.
He led England to the 1992 European Championships and also managed Watford, Villa, Wolves and Lincoln.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/late-england-boss-graham-taylor-11164744
Taylor was a supporter of Sense-National Deafblind and Rubella Association and a Patron of DebRa. He was a Celebrity Ambassador for the Sense Enterprise Board in Birmingham, and worked to raise both funds and awareness, including running the London Marathon in 2004.[74] He regularly hosted moderated “online coaching seminars” on the DALnet channel. He also supported the Royal British Legion and cycled from London to Paris in 2010 to raise funds for the RBL’s Poppy appeal.[75]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Taylor
Debra charity
Watford Football Club’s Community Sports and Education Trust’s patron, Graham Taylor OBE,
Former Cambridge United star in court this morning over a child sex charge
Bryan Boggis has been accused of a sexual offence involving a 12-year-old boy
A legendary former Cambridge United and Aston Villa player who has been accused of gross indecency with a 12-year-old boy will appear in court today (September 5).
Bryan Boggis, 75, is due in Cambridge Crown Court for a plea hearing concerning the alleged sexual offence.
The alleged crime is said to have taken place in Cambridge between July 1, 1968, and June 30, 1970.
On August 8, Boggis pleaded not guilty to a charge of gross indecency with a boy under the age of 14 years old at Cambridge Magistrates Court.
Boggis, of Suffield Road, Gorleston, played for the U’s in the 1960s and is named in a book listing the club’s ‘100 Greats’.
The case forms part of an investigation into non-recent allegations related to football in Cambridgeshire.
A biography of Boggis in 100 Greats Cambridge United Football Club says: “In the early 1960s, the first name put on every team sheet was that of the defender Brian (sic) Boggis.
“He was Mr Consistency and as well as appearing near the top of the list of Southern League appearances for Cambridge United, he also figured in the top twenty appearances for the club since the war.”
Bob Higgins: Ex-Saints coach child abuse charges trial date set
16 August 2017
A date has been set for the trial of a former Southampton Football Club youth coach who faces child abuse charges.
Bob Higgins, 64, of Litchfield Road, Southampton, appeared at Winchester Crown Court earlier charged with 65 counts of indecent assault against 23 boys, all aged under 17.
The alleged offences took place between 1970 and 1996.
Mr Higgins, whose first name is Robert, did not enter a plea but a provisional trial date has been set for 9 April.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-40948033
Former youth coach Frank Roper accused of abusing 31 young players
- A Freedom of Information request revealed 31 people have filed 35 accusations
- Several alleged victims have begun legal proceedings against Blackpool
- Ex-England player Paul Stewart says he was abused on daily basis for four years
Thirty-one former footballers including England international Paul Stewart have accused former youth coach Frank Roper of historical sexual abuse.
Several alleged victims have also begun legal proceedings against Blackpool, with whom Roper was closely associated in the 1980s.
Stewart, 52, has claimed that Roper, who died in Stockport in 1995, abused him on a daily basis for four years from the age of 11.
Frank Roper (right) has been accused of abusing 31 former footballers
A Freedom of Information request revealed that 31 individuals have filed 35 accusations against Roper, a former football coach in the North West.
Sportsmail exposed Roper as a serial sexual predator last November. He exploited his power at renowned Manchester youth club Nova and enjoyed strong links with Blackpool.
Stewart, the former Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester City striker, said: ‘It’s sad that so many came forward because it meant so many suffered.
‘People will see now how prolific he was, and hopefully the people who suffered will not feel as I have, that the police are only interested in the victims of others.
The former youth coach was closely associated with Blackpool in the 1980s
‘I’m not bothered that he won’t face justice, I never came forward for that. But I’m gutted for those who have reported him and will not see him face justice.’
Roper warned Stewart, who started his career at Blackpool, never to tell anyone of the horrific ordeal or risk his family being killed.
Witnesses revealed how Roper abused children on expensive trips to the Far East, New Zealand and America.
Dino Nocivelli of Bolt Burdon Kemp Solicitors, representing several survivors, said: ‘The number of children who allegedly suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Frank Roper indicates he was a substantial threat to children.
‘What is even more worrying is that this is very likely to only be the tip of the iceberg — Frank Roper was associated with Blackpool for over a decade, he was granted frequent access to children as a result of this and the abuse is alleged to have taken place not just in England but also in Thailand and New Zealand.
‘I have been instructed by a number of survivors to pursue claims against Blackpool Football Club. A letter before claim has been sent on behalf of one of my clients to Blackpool setting out the abuse that my client suffered at the hands of Roper.
‘Blackpool have confirmed receipt of these papers and I am awaiting their response as to whether or not they admit responsibility for the acts of Roper.’
A Greater Manchester Police spokesperson said: ‘We will continue to support any victims of non-recent sexual abuse and we are working with charities and partner organisations to help provide them with specialist support.
‘GMP will continue to inform victims of any updates regarding their complaints.
‘We understand that reporting such traumatic events is extremely difficult and we will continue to assist any victims in any way that we can.’
Blackpool were approached but declined to comment.
Barry Bennell is to stand trial over child sex offences in January
21 July 2017
Former football coach Barry Bennell is to stand trial next January over child sex offences.
The 63-year-old appeared at Liverpool Crown Court on Friday via video-link, charged with 55 offences, including 42 counts of indecent assault, 11 counts of buggery and two counts of attempted buggery.
The trial is expected to last eight weeks.
The charges relate to 12 complainants and the offences allegedly happened between 1979 and 1991, when the victims were aged between eight and 15.
The former coach wore a black T-shirt and appeared clean-shaven.
Honorary Recorder of Liverpool Judge Clement Goldstone said a pre-trial hearing would be held on October 27 ahead of the trial on January 8 next year.
Bob Higgins, former Southampton youth coach, denies child sexual abuse charges
- Higgins faces 65 counts of non-recent sexual abuse against 23 boys
- Case to be tried at Winchester crown court
20 July 2017
The former Southampton youth coach Bob Higgins has appeared before magistrates charged with 65 sexual offences against boys as young as 12.
Higgins, 64, was accused of 63 indecent assaults and two attempted indecent assaults between 1970 and 1996. The court was told the alleged offences relate to 23 boys.
The clerk told the court he faced 63 charges of indecent assault between 1970 and 1996 against boys aged under 17 and two attempted indecent assaults against a boy aged under 16 between 1979 and 1983.
He indicated during a three-minute hearing before Southampton magistrates that he would be pleading not guilty to the charges. He will next appear at Winchester crown court on 16 August.
Higgins was a coach in Southampton’s junior system in the 1980s and worked as Peterborough United’s youth-team manager from May 1995 to April 1996 as well as running his own soccer school. He was still involved in football, working with adults at Fleet Town, when the police investigation began last year.
10 July 2017
Police arrest 11 as part of football sex abuse inquiry
More than 150 people have made allegations of child sexual abuse in football, with 11 arrests made.
Police Scotland said officers have been contacted by 162 people since a major inquiry into abuse in football was launched at the end of last year.
It was sparked by claims from former players across the UK – including Andy Woodward – that they were abused by people in positions of authority.
The Scottish Football Association (SFA) has set up an independent review into reports of historic child abuse in the sport.
https://stv.tv/news/scotland/1393218-police-arrest-11-as-part-of-football-sex-abuse-inquiry/
June 28 2017
Barry Bennell: Ex-football coach in court on 14 further abuse charges
Ex-football coach Barry Bennell has appeared in court charged with a further 14 counts of sexual abuse.
The charges, which include indecent assault and serious sexual assault, involve four boys who were aged between 11 and 14 at the time.
The former Crewe Alexandra youth coach now faces a total of 55 charges, relating to alleged offences between 1979 and 1991.
The 63-year-old denied all accusations during previous court appearances.
He appeared via video link for the hearing at South Cheshire Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, speaking only to confirm his name, age and that he understood the charges.
He was remanded in custody and will appear at Liverpool Crown Court on 17 July.
Mr Bennell coached a number of junior teams in north-west England and the Midlands, some with associations to Manchester City and Stoke City.
Latest charges bought against former Crewe/Man City coach Barry Bennell
Barry Bennell has been charged with 14 more counts of non-recent sexual abuse on boys aged 11 to 14. Court date set for June 28.
20 June 2017
Former football coach Barry Bennell faces a further 14 child sex offence charges
Former football coach Barry Bennell is facing a further 14 counts of non-recent sexual assault on boys aged between 11 and 14.
According to the Crown Prosecution Service the new charges relate to 10 counts of indecent assault and four counts of buggery which were alleged to have taken place between 1983 and 1990.
It follows a string of previous allegations made against the 63-year-old.
A CPS spokesperson said: “Today, 20 June, former professional football coach Barry Bennell, 63, was informed that he has been charged with 14 counts of non-recent child sexual abuse against boys aged 11 to 14 years.”
The former Crewe Alexandra coach will appear via video link at South Cheshire Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday June 28 in relation to these charges.
In total he is facing charges of 55 offences between 1979 and 1991 against young boys.
He has previously denied accusations made against him during a succession of court appearances.
Former football coach appears in court charged with sexual abuse of boys
• Former coach of junior club in Newcastle area denies all eight charges
14 June 2017
John Marshall
A former coach of a junior football club in the Newcastle area in the 1980s has appeared in court charged with sexual abuse of young boys.
John Marshall, 69, from Longbenton, in north Tyneside, has been charged with eight offences of indecent assault against three complainants. The offences are alleged to have been carried out between 1980-85, on victims who were aged 14 or under.
The first hearing took place at North Tyneside magistrates court. The charges against Marshall follow an investigation by Northumbria police into allegations of historical child sexual abuse at football clubs in their locality, Operation Tide.
One of the alleged victims was 12 and 13 at the time Marshall is accused of indecently assaulting him, another of the boys was 13 and the other was 14.
Marshall denied all the charges and was granted unconditional bail. He is due to appear next at Newcastle crown court on 12 July.
Former Newcastle United coach appears in court charged with 29 sex offences against boys and men dating back more than 40 years
- George Ormond, faces 29 charges charges relating to 17 complainants
- Incidents involving Ormond said to have occured between 1973 and 1988
- He did not enter pleas to the charges at North Tyneside Magistrates’ Court
A former Newcastle United coach has been charged with 29 historic sexual offences dating back more than 40 years.
George Ormond, 61, from Newton Abbot, Devon, appeared via videolink for a five minute hearing at North Tyneside Magistrates’ Court today.
Wearing black-rimmed glasses, the bearded defendant identified himself in a clear voice.
He did not enter pleas to the 29 charges which relate to 17 complainants, and which were said to have occurred between 1973 and 1998.
He is charged with one count of buggery of a boy of 15, 10 counts of indecent assault on boys under 14, eight on boys under 16 and 10 on males over 16.
He was granted unconditional bail and told he must appear at Newcastle Crown Court on July 7.
Ex-Celtic youth coach to face child sex charge this week
Jun 5 2017
THE case against a former Celtic youth coach and kit man charged with a child sex offence will be heard this week in a Belfast court.
Jim McCafferty, 71, who now lives in Northern Ireland, was charged with engaging in sexual activity with a child aged 13 to 16 between December 2011 and December 2014.
The case will be heard in Laganside Magistrate’s Court, Belfast, this Thursday.
McCafferty – who also worked at Hibernian, Falkirk and with youth teams – handed himself in at a Belfast police station where he allegedly made a confession.
Since last December he has been in protective custody in prison in Northern Ireland Police Scotland launched an investigation into claims he abused young players in Scotland, and evidence was handed over to Northern Ireland’s prosecution service.
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Was Lawrence Haggart really murdered by ex-Celtic youth coach Jim McCafferty ?
Daniel Taylor @DTguardian May 20
The FA told us they would be “completely transparent” about sex-abuse scandal. Why didn’t they keep to it?
FA clearly falling short on transparency in sexual abuse scandal
The refusal to name the eight clubs who missed two deadlines to pass on whatever information they had in the sexual abuse inquiry is baffling
Child sex abuse: Eight remaining football clubs respond to abuse inquiry
May 21 2017
Eight professional clubs have responded after initially missing an inquiry’s deadline for giving information about historical child sex abuse in football.
The inquiry, led by barrister Clive Sheldon QC, was started by the Football Association in December after allegations from former players.
Sheldon wrote to every club in England and Wales in January.
The EFL said in a statement it was “very disappointed” to learn eight clubs had missed the 15 March deadline.
Those clubs, which have not been named, had been warned they could face sanctions.
“Having been made aware of the situation, the EFL immediately made contact with the relevant clubs and secured a response,” said the statement.
A final report is not expected to be published until 2018.
http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/39994580
Ex-Newcastle youth coach George Ormond faces sex charges
May 19 2017
Former Newcastle United youth coach George Ormond has been charged with 29 sex offences, police have said.
The 61-year-old, of Newton Abbot, Devon, is alleged to have committed the offences between 1973 and 1998.
He is due to appear before Newcastle Magistrates’ Court on 9 June, Northumbria Police said.
The charges followed an investigation into “non-recent child sexual abuse in the sporting community”, the force added.
Ormond is the first person to be charged as part of Operation Tide, which was set up late last year to look into allegations of child sex abuse at football clubs in the North East.
In November, Newcastle United said it would co-operate fully with the investigation.
Assistant Chief Constable Darren Best said inquiries were continuing.
He added: “We urge anyone who may have been a victim of abuse or has any information about suspected abuse within any sporting community to come forward and report it to us.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-39976788
FA investigators seek evidence of paedophile ring
15 May 2017
The review into English football’s child sexual abuse scandal is investigating whether a paedophile ring operated in the game, it can be disclosed.
The inquiry into how the Football Association and the country’s clubs dealt with the alleged abuse of schoolboy players between 1970 and 2005 – and whether there was any cover-up – is also examining girls’ football during that period.
Almost six months after it was launched on the back of an avalanche of harrowing allegations at the end of last year, details can be revealed about the scope and status of the review into what FA chairman Greg Clarke admitted was the biggest crisis he could recall the game facing.
As well as looking at whether there was a network of paedophiles abusing young players and investigating both boys’ and girls’ football, that review will:
- Examine up to five million documents held in an FA archive.
- Investigate the use of gag clauses by clubs paying off alleged victims.
- Scrutinise the role of officials from affected teams who also held positions at the FA.
- Make recommendations about the governing body’s current safeguarding processes if it identifies weaknesses.
- Report any evidence of criminal activity to the police.
- Aim to publish its final report early next year.
Led by Clive Sheldon QC, the review was commissioned by the FA after the potential scale of the game’s child sexual abuse scandal became clear.
Its impact was highlighted again on Sunday night when the BBC’s ‘Victoria Derbyshire’ programme won the TV Bafta for news coverage following its emotional interviews with lead whistleblower Andy Woodward and other survivors.
A hotline set up in the wake of the scandal continues to receive calls, while the latest figures from Operation Hydrant, the police investigation into non-recent allegations of sexual abuse, shows it has had 1,432 referrals and has identified 560 victims aged between four and 20, 96 per cent of whom are male.
It has also identified 252 suspects, with 311 football clubs impacted – including several in the Premier League.
More alarmingly still, 46 of 187 alleged attacks since 1996 are said to have occurred between 2005 and 2016, outside the scope of the review.
Sheldon, appointed by the FA after concerns were raised about the independence of its original choice of review head, Kate Gallafent QC, last month completed the first phase of his work.
That involved Sheldon and a team of four barristers laying the groundwork for interviewing witnesses and examining documents between now and the autumn.
Although he has no power to subpoena evidence, anyone who fails to co-operate with the review faces being sanctioned by the FA.
It emerged on Monday night that eight professional clubs were facing that fate after failing to meet two deadlines to respond to a letter from Sheldon requesting any information they have that might be relevant.
As part of his work, Sheldon will seek to establish whether perpetrators acted independently or were part of a local or national paedophile ring, something some victims suspect but others doubt.
Meetings with several individuals have already taken place, including with representatives of survivors’ group the Offside Trust – with one also scheduled with the former players who front it.
Two solicitors and two paralegals have been tasked with locating and examining documents, mainly from the FA’s own archive.
That is in a warehouse containing 9,000 boxes, each filled with up to 1,000 pages, and most of which are not adequately indexed.
That means approximately 5,000 of those boxes being opened and examined to establish whether they contain material pertinent to safeguarding.
The Premier League, EFL and county FAs have also been asked to provide any relevant documents they hold.
The review will seek to compare the game’s approach to safeguarding during the period in question both with that of other sports and other countries.
It will also examine the controversial use of gag clauses by clubs privately settling abuse claims, such as the one The Daily Telegraph exclusively revealed Chelsea had imposed on a victim of their former chief scout, Eddie Heath.
Although the inquiry will have taken more than a year by the time Sheldon reports, it is understood no constraints have been placed on the cost of it to the FA, which is also fully aware its findings could open the governing body and clubs up to legal action by victims.
Clarke said last year: “When the report comes out, there may well be legal consequences and all of us in the game have to deal with that. Compensation will be a consequence of the facts that emerge.”
Running in parallel with the review is an independent audit of the FA’s current safeguarding practices by the NSPCC’s Child Protection in Sport Unit.
That audit will not stop Sheldon making his own observations about the status quo if he identifies any weaknesses.
The QC who courts controversy and pushes peace
Interview: Clive Sheldon QC
Sheldon had represented the Health Secretary in the high court case that upheld the legality of their (junior doctors’) new contract.
Sheldon is tight-lipped as to his view on the junior doctors’ contract, but admits the case was fascinating, especially given Jeremy Hunt’s direct involvement.
In more than 20 years as a barrister representing public sector bodies, this was not the first case Sheldon has had that he couldn’t put on Facebook “because my friends wouldn’t be happy“. In other words, one that would clash with his other life as the child of Guardian-reading liberal Zionists, and as a former Habonim and BBYO member, who volunteered in Israel during his gap year and spent his student days campaigning for Soviet Jewry. Sheldon’s mother is a Holocaust survivor; “knowing about rights and morality and fighting for justice” has always been central to his endeavours.
Last year the father-of-three won a Government case on the so-called bedroom tax, involving a severely disabled boy living in a specially converted house whose family had been told they didn’t need the extra room.
An active member of New North London Synagogue who has represented Masorti on a number of inter-communal committees, including the JLC, and for the last two years has chaired human rights organisation New Israel Fund UK – his record of defending the “establishment” is perhaps surprising
https://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/features/the-qc-who-courts-controversy-and-pushes-peace-1.54589
Background on Clive Sheldon QC – Establishment man
In August 2012, Clive has just represented the Chief Constable of Wiltshire in a judicial review challenge to a misconduct decision made by the Police Appeals Tribunal
Perhaps we will get some clarity when Clive Sheldon QC produces what the FA insists ought to be classified as an independent inquiry.
Sheldon was appointed at the start of December to judge, among other things, if there had been a cover-up and whether the governing body had been guilty of institutional failures.
Yet that, in turn, raises its own questions.However revered Sheldon is in his particular field, how can any inquiry truly be independent when the organisation that is being investigated is also footing the bill?…
Clive Sheldon was appointed Queen’s Counsel in April 2011, and is recognised by Chambers and Partners as a Leading Silk in the fields of Employment Law, Education Law and Local Government Law. Before taking Silk, Clive was for many years a member of the Attorney-General’s ‘A’ Panel of Junior Counsel to the Crown.
In his employment practice, Clive specialises in high profile discrimination claims for employers and employees, and disputes involving senior executives and high ranking public office holders. Clive is currently representing the Metropolitan Police Authority defending a series of discrimination claims brought by former Commander Ali Dizaei. Clive is representing the Secretary of State for Justice in a series of claims brought by foreign language interpreters arising from the change to the procurement arrangements for court interpreters.
In his public law work, Clive has particular expertise in matters relating to the police, education, health, local authorities and human rights. Recently, Clive successfully defended the decision of the Secretary of State for Education to convert Downhills School into an Academy. Clive is currently Leading Counsel for a coalition of local authorities, professional associations, schools and students, challenging the GCSE English awards in August 2012. Clive has just represented the Chief Constable of Wiltshire in a judicial review challenge to a misconduct decision made by the Police Appeals Tribunal. Clive regularly advises the Association of Council Secretaries & Solicitors (ACSeS), and local authorities, on standards issues under the Localism Act 2011.
Clive practised for two years as an Attorney with a leading Wall Street firm, where he specialised in commercial litigation, and continues to be a member of the New York State Bar. Clive is also a CEDR trained mediator, and a member of the Professional Complaints Committee of the Bar Standards Board. Clive writes chapters for Tolley’s Employment Law Service and Tolley’s Employment Handbook and Clive speaks regularly on employment and public law issues, including a recent address to the Administrative Law Bar Association on ‘Consultation’.
Football abuse scandal: eight clubs could face sanctions after missing deadlines
• Level of non-cooperation is ‘deeply concerning’, says specialist lawyer
Eight of the professional football clubs contacted by the independent inquiry into the game’s sexual-abuse scandal have failed to respond and now risk disciplinary action unless they tell the investigators what they know, the Guardian can reveal.
The Football Association is ready to step in and has the power to impose sanctions if it considers the clubs who have failed to comply – missing two separate deadlines over the past four months and displaying a level of non-cooperation described as “deeply concerning” by one specialist child-abuse lawyer – are threatening to undermine the investigation into what the organisation’s chairman, Greg Clarke, has described as the worst crisis he can remember in the sport.
The inquiry team, led by Clive Sheldon QC, wrote to every amateur and professional club in England and Wales on 11 January asking them to supply any information that could help relating to the period covered by the review, from 1970 to 2005, and requesting this was done by 15 March at the latest.
Sheldon and his colleagues consider that part of the process to be vital if they are to form an accurate picture of what happened in the past, whether there were institutional failures, who knew and what was done about it. However, the first phase of the investigation has been hindered by the difficulties they have encountered waiting for a number of clubs to cooperate.
The clubs who did not respond within the initial two-month period were contacted a second time and informed that a new deadline had been put in place of the end of April. Yet the fact eight clubs still failed to meet that six-week extension has led to the FA being notified and leaves questions about whether there are still people within the sport who are unwilling to cooperate at a time when Clarke has emphasised the importance of transparency.
“The fact that clubs continue to ignore the FA inquiry and fail to cooperate is deeply concerning,” Dino Nocivelli, a lawyer who is representing a number of the former footballers, told the Guardian. “It clearly shows their disregard for survivors of childhood sexual abuse within football and serious questions have to be asked as to the reasons why these clubs have decided not to engage.”
The last available figures, released by the National Police Chiefs’ Council on 18 April, showed 560 people had come forward citing abuse and 252 suspects had been named since the Guardian began its investigation in November. Around 23% of the reported incidents – with 311 clubs named – related to the sport at professional level and Operation Hydrant, the specialist police unit investigating the matter, had received 1,432 referrals, with almost a third, 457, coming from the north-west.
The inquiry, which will also look into girls’ football, will examine any evidence of a possible network between the offenders.
Sheldon was appointed in December and one part of his investigation will be to examine the reasons why, in 2003, the FA withdrew its funding from a review of child-protection policies, two years into what was supposed to be a five-year project led by Celia Brackenridge, a prominent campaigner and researcher from Brunel University.
Letters have also been sent to every club – a figure close to 20 – linked to the scandal in media coverage to establish if they are holding their own reviews and, if not, asking for the reasons why. Again, the relevant clubs – including Chelsea, Manchester City, Newcastle United, Southampton, Aston Villa, Blackpool and Crewe Alexandra – have been asked to submit their evidence to help Sheldon’s own fact-finding mission, with a view to submitting his report to the FA early next year. The terms of reference state the FA will make public as much as is legally possible.
Chelsea, the Guardian has established, have appointed a QC, Charles Geekie, a specialist in child abuse cases, to examine what happened at Stamford Bridge in the 1970s and the chain of events that led to the club paying one of their former players, Gary Johnson, £50,000 hush money in an attempt to prevent publicity about what happened to him in their youth team. Chelsea admitted in December they now considered that confidentiality agreement to be “inappropriate” and issued a public apology about the way the club had handled the allegations relating to Eddie Heath, formerly their chief scout.
Manchester City, facing the possibility of civil action from a number of their former junior players, have started their own investigation, using two of Manchester’s leading law firms as well as appointing Jane Mulcahy, a London-based QC who is on the national child safeguarding in sport panel and has been involved with the England and Wales Cricket Board’s appeals panel in child-protection cases.
The next stage of Sheldon’s inquiry will last several months and be devoted to interviewing the survivors and key witnesses. He and his team have received professional training to ensure the process is handled delicately and there will be the opportunity for people to speak anonymously, with an introductory link on the Sport Resolutions website.
Mike Hartill, a senior lecturer in sociology and sport at Edge Hill University who has previously been credited with improving child-protection policies in rugby league, is liaising with Sheldon and has produced a report for the inquiry to detail the measures that used to exist in football. The inquiry team has been interviewing various members of staff from previous FA regimes, as well as gathering evidence from a variety of other sources, but has also had to devote a significant amount of time to looking for relevant information from among the 5,000 boxes of FA archives.
As disappointing as it has been that almost one out of every 11 professional clubs has missed the various deadlines, that does not reflect the attitudes of the people who have been asked to take part in interviews. Everybody so far has agreed and it is hoped the FA’s involvement may influence the eight clubs who have let down the process so far.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/may/15/football-abuse-scandal-eight-clubs?CMP=share_btn_tw
12 May 2017
CELTIC, SAVILE, MURDERED BOY, DUNBLANE,
There is a belief that Celtic football club is linked to a powerful child abuse ring that has operated among top people in Scotland and the USA.15-year-old Lawrence Haggart, a Celtic youth football player, was murdered on 16 march 1996, two days after the Dunblane school massacre.
Alleged abusers Jim McCafferty (left) and Jim Torbett (right)Anonymous writes:
“Lawrence Haggart’s father fears that the Celtic ‘kit man’ Jim McCafferty was abusing Lawrence.
“McCafferty used to visit the lads home, phoned him on the day he was murdered and took him to watch games.”
Jim Torbett (centre)Anonymous writes:
“Three other men currently awaiting trial were at Celtic at the same time – JIM TORBETT, Frank Cairney, and Gerard King (Ex-Celtic Boys Club coach & chairman ).”Torbett was in business with celtic directors and was paid £1million from celtic after his conviction in the 90s.”Torbett was a director at Fairbridge, now part of the princes trust, with ex Metropolitan Police chief David McNee, Lord McAlpine’s brother William and Lord McCluskey amongst others.”Liam Brady agreed not to go to the police on an allegation of abuse when Cairney took the youths to New Jersey in 1991…”~~ MURDER MYSTERY – LAWRENCE HAGGART – PART ONE
John Police were called to Lawrence’s house at 1:30am.Lawrence lived in Larbert, in Stirlingshire, not far from Dunblane.Lawrence died in hospital from his injuries.The Murder of Lawrence Haggart, 1996 – The Celtic WikiIncidents, Events and Controversies | About Celtic
LawrenceInitial reports suggested that Lawrence was attacked when he answered the door of his mother’s home late in the evening, or, in the early hours of the morning.Police found no sign of a weapon or forced entry.
DennisLawrence Haggart’s mother Janet was on a night out and brothers John, 17, and Dennis, 12, were reportedly ‘asleep’ upstairs.The Murder of Lawrence Haggart, 1996 – The Celtic WikiIncidents, Events and Controversies | About Celtic
Larry HaggartLawrence’s father Larry lives nearby in Denny.Lawrence had been returning from an evening out with friends at an under-18 nightclub knows as Ziggy’s at Denny.A friend had accompanied him in a taxi as far as Bonnybridge.Lawrence left the taxi at 10.20pm that night and reportedly got home at 11pm.
Six months after Lawrence’s death, Lawrence’s father Larry Haggart said that he was planning a private investigation into the killing.Larry Haggart was furious at the lack of progress by police.Larry claimed the investigation into Lawrence’s murder suffered because it came two days after the Dunblane massacre, also in the Central Scotland Police area.A year after the killing, the police had still not found the murderers.
Thomas Hamilton – blamed for the Dunblane school shooting of 1996 – The Dunblane school massacre occurred in scotland on 13 March 1996. The official story is that, on 13 March 1996, a mad loner called Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 children at a primary school in Dunblane in Scotland. The unofficial story is that Thomas Hamilton was supplying pornography, and young boys, to top people including policemen and politicians; and Thomas Hamilton may have been murdered, to shut him up.In October 1997, it was reported that the police were holding a known child abuser, Brian Beattie, suspected of murdering Lawrence Haggart.Reportedly, Brian Beattie followed Lawrence home.In 1991, Brian Beattie had been jailed for five years for assaults on adolescent boys.He lived just a few miles from the scene of the murder.BUT, initially the police seemed reluctant to pursue Beattie.
Lockerbie. Thanks to the Lockerbie Bombing trial, many people believe that the Scottish Criminal Justice System cannot be trusted.Police chief- Lockerbie evidence was faked – The Scotsman / NEW REPORT OF ‘FAKE’ EVIDENCE IN LOCKERBIE/ Police officer said that he planted the Lockerbie bomb …Reportedly, Brian Beattie made incriminating comments to a fellow inmate while in prison on remand.In November 1997, Brian Beattie, 33, of Stenhousemuir, appeared in court accused of murdering Lawrence by entering the Haggart house in Glenbervie Drive, Larbert, Stirlingshire, on 15 or 16 March 1996.
Lawrence Haggart was murdered at his home in March 1996In April 1998, Lawrence’s brother John told the High Court in Edinburgh how he dragged his brother from a flaming pyre in the living room of their home.John, said he found Lawrence after being awakened in his smoke-filled bedroom.John says his mother arrived home from a party within minutes
John
Brian Beattie lodged a special defence of incrimination, naming Lawrence Haggart’s 12-year-old brother Dennis as the killer.He also lodged a further defence of alibi claiming he was in Stenhousemuir, Edinburgh and later at his own caravan in Denny, Stirlingshire, on the night of the alleged murder.
Lawrence’s funeralIn court, Dennis said he had been proud, not envious, of Lawrence’s success in football.He denied “losing the place” and bludgeoning his brother but agreed that in the weeks after the attack, the police had thought he was the killer.Dennis told the jury that he and Lawrence had shared a bedroom and got on well.
Moira. 11-year-old Moira Anderson was last seen boarding a bus in Coatbridge, near Glasgow, Scotland. According to The Sunday Times (Pressure on police to release paedophile dossier), 23 April 2006, Strathclyde Police have a dossier listing members of a child-abuse ring. The dossier is said to implicate senior public figures, including senior police officers and members of the Crown Office and former Scottish Office.A fire officer told the court that two fires had been started deliberately in the room where Lawrence was found dying.Two seats of fire were discovered. One of those was on the living room carpet and the other was on the settee. Both seats of the blaze had been started deliberately.In court, pathologist Professor Busuttil was shown a piece of concrete slab – there had been a number lying outside the victim’s house – and agreed that it could have been used by the killer.Prof Busuttil said: “There were no defensive injuries and no evidence that he (the deceased) was involved in an altercation in which, for example, punches were exchanged. It is very likely he was taken completely unawares and that the incident was short-lived.”
Celtic Boys Club, Scotland. In 1996 former Celtic Boys Club player Alan Brazil revealed that when he was 13 years old he was sexually abused by the club manager, Jim Torbett.[2]The court heard that Brian Beattie, 33, was involved in a homosexual encounter in a gay meeting place on the night Lawrence was murdered.Brian Beattie, 33, was interviewed by police while Lawrence was still fighting for his life and told them he was positive he had not been near the victim’s house in Larbert, Stirlingshire, that night.The High Court in Edinburgh also heard how a detective had “stumbled across” a hammer in the kitchen of Lawrence’s house four days after a specialist team had searched the house for a possible weapon but found no hammer.
Detective Constable Gordon McGown told the court that on March 16, 1996, he had gone to the Evergreen Trailer Park in Denny where Brian Beattie had a caravan.Brian Beattie agreed to go to Falkirk police station and they tried to establish his movements for the night in question.
The court heard that on March 18 a team of police search experts were called into the Haggart family home and during a three-and-a-half hour investigation found a triangular piece of concrete slab on grass outside the house.However, scenes of crime pictures taken two days earlier showed no sign of a piece of concrete.The Murder of Lawrence Haggart, 1996 – The Celtic WikiIncidents, Events and Controversies | About CelticPC Jeffrey Adams told the court that he had been part of the search team and had spent 26 minutes searching the kitchen of Lawrence’s house on March 18. No hammer had been found and in his opinion they would have found a hammer had it been there.Detective Sergeant Robert Beveridge said he had called at the house four days later and come across the hammer in the kitchen.He could not recall who had instructed him to go to the house or what he was told to look for, but thought there might have been a problem with the electricity.The house had been sealed and the inquiry team had taken possession of it.He explained that he had “stumbled across” the hammer which was lying down the kitchen table.He said he was “absolutely positive” the hammer, with a hair attached to it, was there when he went into the kitchen.
Stephen Downing spent 27 years in prison for the murder of Wendy Sewell before his conviction was quashed. Coerced false confessionsNorth America2.2.1 Norfolk Four2.2.2 Brown v. Mississippi2.2.3 Central Park jogger2.2.4 Pizza Hut murder2.2.5 Corethian Bell2.2.6 Simon Marshall2.2.7 Jeffrey Mark Deskovic2.2.8 Michael Crowe2.2.9 Gary Gauger2.2.10 Kevin Fox2.2.11 West Memphis Three2.4 United Kingdom2.4.1 Stephen Downing2.4.2 Guildford Four2.4.3 Birmingham SixReportedly, Brian Beattie confessed to murdering Lawrence and allegedly said that the Dunblane massacre might have “triggered something in me”, the jury was told.Brian beattie said: “I keep remembering the fear in his face. I want to go to the grave to say sorry to him.”Detective Sergeant Gordon Munro, 41, said that Beattie was interviewed over a weekend.Beattie reportedly said he had gone in the front door of the Haggart house and, through the glass-paned living room door, saw Lawrence on a couch covered with a blanket or a quilt.”I opened the living room door and stepped in. He got up and said something . I hit him a I can remember his face, I will never forget it.”He fell back on the couch and I hit him again. I keep remembering the fear in his face.”I do not know how many times I hit him or what I hit him with. It’s a blank. I know I never took nothing in with me but my hands were not sore after it so I must have used something. The next thing I remember is running back down the street.”He allegedly said in the statement he had gone back to the caravan and had managed to fall asleep. He got up early the next morning and burned his clothes at a lay-by.Beattie continued: “It was just after Dunblane and I do not know if it was that that triggered something in me. We [Beattie and some of his family] went up there and took flowers.”
The UK police reportedly suffer from Third World levels of corruption. GANGSTERS RUN THE UKIn court, Detective Sergeant Gordon Munro denied that Beattie was beaten up in police custody, and maintained that he made a genuine confession to the killing.
The court heard that videos featuring the abduction and torture of youths for sexual pleasure were found by police during a search of Beattie’s home.Detective Constable Forrest Sloan, 39, told the High Court in Edinburgh the pornographic material was in a chest of drawers at the home of Brian Beattie, 33, in Ewing Drive, Falkirk.The search of Beattie’s home was carried out on August 23, 1997, when two pornographic videos were found in a front bedroom.
Mr Edgar Prais, QC, for Mr Beattie, said “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the defence calls the police liars.”Of an alleged confession made by Mr Beattie, Mr Edgar Prais, QC, said it was strange that when it was supposedly made the police did not tape record it.Mr Edgar Prais, QC, said that forensic tests were carried out in Scotland and by the FBI Bureau in Washington on behalf of the defence.In all tests, Beattie was eliminated from any connection with the murder scene.In may 1998, Beattie was jailed for life.The Murder of Lawrence Haggart, 1996 – The Celtic WikiIncidents, Events and Controversies | About Celtic
In 1984, Beattie had been sentenced to seven years for breaking into premises and for arson.In 1992, Beattie had appeared at the High Court in Edinburgh on a charge of abducting a 16-year-old boy from his bedroom.The 16-year-old victim woke at 3am to find Beattie, who had been released from jail four days earlier, standing over his bed.He covered the boy’s face with a blanket and, after warning him that he had a knife, tied his wrists with a shirt and wire.The half-dressed boy was forced from his home with a T-shirt over his head.Beattie fled after his victim managed to pull the shirt off and saw his attacker.Beattie was jailed but released ‘on licence’ in 1994.Beattie was brought up in Airth, Stirlingshire.He began his criminal life at the age of 11.He spent his early years in a succession of schools and institutions for difficult children.When his mother moved to Redcar, in Teesside, Brian Beattie broke into four homes belonging to elderly widows, stole valuables and set fire to their houses.While in custody, Beattie set fire to his prison cell and attempted suicide by setting fire to himself.After his release in 1988, Beattie moved back to Airth, in Stirlingshire, and in November that year carried out a series of attacks.Beattie would sneak into houses in the middle of the night, after watching for signs that boys lived there.His first victim was a 14-year-old Stenhousemuir boy, but he struggled free and Beattie ran off.In August 1990, a 17-year-old boy sleeping in his home at Falkirk woke to find Beattie holding a pair of scissors at his stomach.Beattie carried out a number of sexual assaults on the boy.The victim remembers Beattie as being “calm, controlled and relaxed”.Three weeks later, Beattie carried out a similar attack on 21-year-old Lawrence Kane while his parents and older brother slept in other rooms in their Stenhousemuir home.Lawrence said: “I can remember waking up and he had his hand over my privates and a knife in my belly. He said if I moved he would slash me.”I managed to push him off me and chased him out of the room…”Beattie struck again in October – with two attacks in five days.He sneaked into a house in Larbert and threatened to kill an 18-year- old boy with a screwdriver before sexually assaulting him.Then he struck at the home of a former Scotland football star and attacked his 14-year-old son.The victim said: “Basically he had a strict routine with all the attacks and the last time he went a step further and ended up killing this boy. I was one of the lucky ones.”Beattie was eventually arrested in connection with some of these incidents but was released on bail at Falkirk Sheriff Court.Six days later, he carried out an assault on a 20-year- old Falkirk man.In February 1991, he was sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh to 18 months for the assaults but served only eight months.The Curious Case of the Clown Persecution Service, and the summary Quis Custodiet Custodes?, which sets out the bizarre and suspect behaviour of Strathclyde Police and their continuing refusal to act against a known serial rapist preying on children in the Glasgow area.~~MURDER MYSTERY – LAWRENCE HAGGART – PART TWO
Lawrence HaggartThere is a suspicion that certain violent ‘child sexual abusers’ are given an easy time by the criminal justice system.Think of Jimmy Savile or Marc Dutroux, both of whom the authorities were reluctant to arrest, presumably because they had friends in high places.(The Who’s who of Satanic Child Abuse -)On 16 March 1996, 15 year old Lawrence Haggart was brutally attacked.On 17 March 1996, the frequently convicted paedophile and arsonist Brian Beattie, who lived nearby, was questioned by the police.
Strangely, there appear to be no pictures on the internet of Beattie.
Beattie had a long history of going into houses and sexually attacking boys, and a long history of using violence and setting things alight.
However, Beattie was released after claiming he had been in Edinburgh.
The police failed to check his uncorroborated alibi.
And the police switched their attention elsewhere.
The Murder of Lawrence Haggart, 1996 – The Celtic WikiIncidents, Events and Controversies | About Celtic
Lawrence’s funeral.
In May 1998, it was reported that an independent inquiry into the police handling of the Lawrence Haggart case was to be carried out by James Mackay, the assistant chief constable of Tayside Police.
Details of his report were not made public.
However, under the Freedom of Information Act, a copy of ‘much of the document’ was obtained.
The report refers to a catalogue of blunders made by investigating officers, including:
1. Faking entries in an official diary of the murder inquiry.
2. Contaminating the crime scene.
3. Destroying evidence.
4. Losing a possible murder weapon.
Sections of the report dealing with an alleged criminal probe against murder squad officers has not been released.
The Murder of Lawrence Haggart, 1996 – The Celtic WikiIncidents, Events and Controversies | About Celtic
Dennis Haggart
The suspects in the case were Dennis Haggart, the 12 year old brother of Lawrence, and Brian Beattie, a known child abuser who lived nearby.A report was sent to the Crown Office saying there was circumstantial evidence to link Dennis Haggart to the attack.
Detective Sgt Alan Stewart had said that he had evidence that Dennis committed the crime.
The initial police team was led by Det Supt Jim Winning, head of Central Scotland CID.
The team’s theory was that Dennis had bludgeoned his brother to death.
After many months, Dennis’s father complained about the lack of progress being made in the case.
At the end of 1996, Supt Joe Holden replaced Winning.
The change of police staff led to Brian Beattie becoming the central suspect.
The Murder of Lawrence Haggart, 1996 – The Celtic WikiIncidents, Events and Controversies | About Celtic
The police lacked evidence.
Both the scorched couch and the badly burned carpet, at the site of the crime, had been disposed of soon after the murder, with the agreement of the police.
They had not been subjected to any detailed forensic examination.
Supt Holden’s team was left with a series of photographs and a hair found in Lawrence Haggart’s underpants.
Forensic tests in Scotland and at the FBI laboratory in Washington showed that the hair came from Lawrence.
The police had no explanation from Beattie about Lawrence’s palms each of which bore the number 110 written in ink.
Photographs showed the same number ‘gouged’ in his shoulder, apparently using a mortice key.
Strangely, there appear to be no pictures on the internet of Beattie.
In 1992, Beattie appeared in court on a charge of abducting a 16-year-old boy from his bedroom.
The 16-year-old victim woke at 3am to find Beattie, who had been released from jail four days earlier, standing over his bed.
Beattie was jailed but released ‘on licence’ in 1994.
In May 1998, a court in Scotland found Brian Beattie guilty of the 1996 murder of 15 year old Lawrence Haggart.
The jury returned a majority guilty verdict.
The Curious Case of the Clown Persecution Service, and the summary Quis Custodiet Custodes?, which sets out the bizarre and suspect behaviour of Strathclyde Police and their continuing refusal to act against a known serial rapist preying on children in the Glasgow area.
Chief Inspector Jim Winning led the initial murder inquiry.
He retired on health grounds.
He was excused from giving evidence on medical grounds.
It was reported that Winning would escape possible disciplinary proceedings through early retirement on health grounds.
The Murder of Lawrence Haggart, 1996 – The Celtic WikiIncidents, Events and Controversies | About Celtic
~~
THE KING RAT: The Godfather, The Krays, Massey, Domenyk & Child Abusers
http://aanirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/celtic-savile-murdered-boy-dunblane.html
Celtic youth player Lawrence Haggart was murdered in 1996 by paedophile William Beattie.Jim McCafferty Celtic kitman at the time and currently remanded in prison in Belfast on sex abuse charges was a suspect as he had phoned the youth on the day of his murder.Gerry McCann was the club doctor at the time.
Lawrence Haggart died on 17th March 1996.
https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t14169-gerry-in-glasgow
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
The dad of murdered Celtic starlet Lawrence Haggart pleaded last night: “Please end our nightmare.”
Tormented Larry Haggart is still praying and hoping for an answer to the mystery surrounding his son’s brutal slaying.
He even launched his own probe into the death, but said: “We are still waiting for news.
“So far there has been only silence.”
He added: “Christmas was very hard for the family. But there are two other boys here and we had to try to make it special for them.”
Lawrence was just 15 when he was viciously attacked in his own living room as his two older brothers slept upstairs at their home in Larbert, near Falkirk.
The night of the attack, March 15, is forever etched on his dad’s memory.
Lawrence died two days later in hospital. His killers had set his feet on fire.
The young soccer star had been tipped to go all the way at Celtic and players, along with manager Tommy Burns attended his funeral in Dennyloanhead, Stirlingshire.
Larry added: “We’re still trying to find anything that could give us a break in his case. I feel the investigation was hampered because of what happened shortly after at Dunblane.”
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/End+our+misery!-a061085664
DUNBLANE – Dr Ian Oliver, Sir Craig Oliver & David Cameron
https://spidercatweb.blog/ian-oliver-craig-oliver-david-cameron-dunblane
Probe coach quits Ex-suspect leaves youth job Sunday Mail 05-06-05
Murder of Celtic youth player Lawrence Haggart
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/444392.stm …
Paedo uncle killed Celtic kid and stole my childhood
Ex-Celtic kit man to face child abuse trial Jim McCafferty
May 11 2017
A former Celtic Football Club kit man and youth coach is to stand trial for alleged child sex offences, a judge has ordered. Jim McCafferty, 71, appeared before Belfast Magistrates’ Court charged with eight counts of intentionally touching a boy under the age of 16. The alleged offences were committed in the city on dates between 2012 and 2015. McCafferty, a Scotsman with an address at Raby Street in south Belfast, has been on remand at Maghaberry Prison amid fears for his safety. He was escorted into the dock on a walking frame for the hearing to determine if he has a case to answer. Dressed in a white T-shirt and and grey tracksuit bottoms, the pensioner spoke to confirm he understood the allegations against him. He declined to give evidence or call witnesses at this stage. His solicitor, Stephen Tumelty, did not dispute submissions that a prima facie case has been established. Granting the prosecution application, District Judge Fiona Bagnall returned McCafferty for trial at Belfast Crown Court on a date to be fixed. He is expected to remain in custody until those proceedings get under way. “There is no application for bail,” Mr Tumelty confirmed. The accused was arrested last December after giving an interview to a national newspaper and then walking into a Belfast police station. McCafferty, who previously lived in the Glasgow area, worked at Celtic more than 20 years ago. He was also a kit man for other Scottish clubs, including Falkirk and Hibs, before moving to Northern Ireland around seven years ago
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/crime/ex-celtic-kit-man-to-face-child-abuse-trial-1-7956713
Ex-football coach Barry Bennell is charged with 21 further counts of sexual assault on boys as young as 14 in the 1980s
- Charges relate to four complainants, alleged offences between 1983 and 1991
- The former Crewe Alexandra coach, 63, has now been charged with 41 offences
- Barry Bennell will appear at South Cheshire Magistrates’ Court on 17 May
Ex-football coach Barry Bennell has been charged with 21 further counts of sexual assault on boys as young as 14.
The charges relate to four complainants with offences allegedly taking place between 1983 and 1991.
In total former Crewe Alexandra coach Bennell, 63, has now been charged with 41 offences relating to eight male complainants.
Ex-football coach Barry Bennell has been charged with 21 further counts of sexual assault on boys as young as 14 in the 1980s
A CPS spokesman said: ‘Former professional football coach Barry Bennell, 63, was informed that he has been charged with 21 counts of non-recent sexual assault on boys aged between 14 and 16 years of age.
‘These are 18 counts of indecent assault, two counts of buggery and one count of attempted buggery.
‘He will appear via video link at South Cheshire Magistrates’ Court on the afternoon of Wednesday, 17 May in relation to these charges.’
Bennell was first charged with eight offences of non-recent child sexual abuse relating to one complainant on 29 November after the Crown Prosecution Service received a file of evidence from Cheshire Police.
On 7 March he was charged with eight more offences relating to two complainants and another four offences relating to one complainant on 9 March.
Bennell, now remanded in custody, worked as a coach for Manchester City, Stoke and junior teams in north-west England and the Midlands.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4488958/Ex-football-coach-Barry-Bennell-charged.html
Ex-Celtic Boys Club coach charged over sex offences
Jim Torbett appeared in court on Friday over historic allegations.
The former Celtic Boys Club coach Jim Torbett has been charged with historic sex offences.
The 69-year-old was arrested earlier this week before appearing in Glasgow Sheriff Court on Friday.
He was charged with six common law sex offences during the hearing.
The allegations include three cases of indecent assault and three accusations of lewd, indecent and libidinous practices.
Torbett made no plea or declaration and his case was continued for further examination.
The former youth football coach, who worked at the Glasgow boys club in the 1970s and 80s, was released on bail.
https://stv.tv/news/west-central/1387729-ex-celtic-boys-club-coach-charged-over-sex-offences/
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Football Reaching Out For Africa
Lord Greville Janner, Michael Portillo, Cliff Richard & Uri Geller
https://twitter.com/thewakeupcall09/status/860132967208947712
https://twitter.com/thewakeupcall09/status/860132967208947712
Support for Africa is no ordinary charity – it was formed to help Africa find a solution in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS and Malaria through education and awareness with an emphasis on prevention. The President and founder of Support for Africa is singer/actress Patti Boulaye. Patrons are The Rt. Hon Sir John Major KG CH, H.E Dr Christopher Kolade (Nigeria) Lord Janner of Braunstone, The Rt. Hon.Charles Kennedy, The Rt. Hon. Michael Portillo, Fredrick Forsyth CBE and Shaquille O’Neal. Celebrity friends include actor Simon Callow CBE, Craig David, Jim Davidson OBE, psychic Uri Geller, footballers John Fashanu and Les Ferdinand to name a few.
Michael Jackson pledges support 14-06-2002
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http://www.supportforafrica.org/events/event140602.htm
http://www.supportforafrica.org/news/scot05/index.htm
https://twitter.com/thewakeupcall09/status/860150029973164033
Exeter City’s new co-chairman Uri Geller (2002) http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/e/exeter_city/1998170.stm …
Lord Greville Janner, Uri Geller & The Magic Circle
http://www.urigeller.com/uri-michael-david-uks-parliament/
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Michael Jackson, Uri Geller, Ariel Sharon & Shmuley Boteach (back to camera)
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
What favour to did Lord Greville Janner owe Uri Geller ? Sun Weekend 15-06-02, p11
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Uri Geller, Lord Greville Janner, Paul Daniels (Page removed now) 1/3
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Uri Geller, Lord Greville Janner, Paul Daniels (Page removed now) 2/3
Uri Geller, Lord Greville Janner, Paul Daniels (Page removed now) 3/3
So Paul Daniels must of known Lord Greville Janner quite well to have been at a few of Janner’s parties.
Michael Jackson Stockpiled Nude Images Of Children, According To Police Report
Authorities seized more than 80 video recordings and computer hard drives, as well as notes, diaries, documents, photographs and audiotapes.
Police discovered Michael Jackson had a large collection of pornography, which allegedly included images of children, animal torture and gore, reportedly used in his bid to seduce young boys. The collection was revealed in newly surfaced documents obtained by RadarOnline that detail a raid on Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch estate in 2003, carried out as part of an investigation into child molestation charges against the singer.
According to previously unseen reports from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department, authorities seized more than 80 video recordings and computer hard drives, as well as notes, diaries, documents, photographs and audiotapes.
Former Santa Barbara Senior Assistant District Attorney Ron Zonen, who helped prosecute Jackson’s case, told RadarOnline that many of the materials found were used to “desensitize” children.
The police report describes several of the materials found at Jackson’s estate and notes that many of the books and images “can be used as part of a ‘grooming’ process by which people (those seeking to molest children) are able to lower the inhibitions of their intended victims and facilitate the molestation of said victims.”
World famous Uri Geller the co-chairman of Exeter City had organized the event to include his friends Michael Jackson the King of Pop, David Blaine (known for his headline-making daring and death-defying feats of physical and emotional endurance) and also singer Patti Boulaye . During the journey on the train sick children were invited into Uri and Michaels compartment for a private audience, they emerged smiling and clutching autographs from the stars a short time after their arrival in Exeter; the stars gave the football club its biggest crowd in years as filling the stadium.
Michael Jackson- who had asked for his dressing room to be filled with flowers and kept at a temperature of exactly 74 degrees – arrived in a classic Bentley. Leaping from the vehicle, he paraded down a line of disabled children, gently placing his palm on their foreheads.
He then took to the stage and with a burst of giggles told the ‘wonderful people of Exeter’ how delighted he was to be there. Dressed in a black embroidered jacket, he told the crowd from the stage: “We are here to support children with Aids, to help the youngest of them affected by HIV. “We will help them build a better future, all of us working together for them, a future without prejudice for these children and their families. “We must learn to live and love each other before it is too late.” Jackson was accompanied by his close friend Uri Geller who had organised the charitable event and also number of children on the stage. After his appeal for world peace, he accepted an Exeter City football shirt and said he had confidence in a win for England against Denmark. Michael then made a farewell tour of the stadium in the classic Bentley after his 10-minute appearance.
http://www.urigeller.com/uri-geller-puts-show-jackson-blaine-patti-boulaye/
http://www.supportforafrica.org/news/clinic2/index.htm
Patti Boulaye and Princess Anne
Patti Boulaye and friends
Patti Boulaye, born Patricia Ngozi Ebigwei on May 3, 1954
Boulaye is the founder and President of the charity “Support for Africa”, which has built five clinics in rural Africa and a school with HRH Prince Harry’s Charity, “Sentebale”, in Lesotho.
Around 2000 I began raising money through pop concerts to build five healthcare clinics and a school in Africa via the charity Support for Africa.
I didn’t raise enough for all the work I wanted to do, and a donor came forward who lent me £15,000 but with a time limit on the loan. I had to build a clinic in Cameroon within two years.
The pressure I was put under to achieve that was uncomfortable. I’ve since learnt that some people think this kind of deal buys them an MBE or something like that.
Boulaye received her OBE in January 2016
I made Prince Charles blush when I was awarded an OBE last year for my charity work building hospitals in Africa. He said: ‘I wish there were more people like you – the world would be a better place.’ I replied: ‘Your Royal Highness, I wish we had two people like you – the world would be even better.’
Boulaye was appointed to the “Entertainment Steering Committee” for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee (2 June 2002)
Another of Edward Garnier’s defamation cases – Patti Boulaye
Patti Boulaye –v- Guardian Newspapers 1999 (recovered substantial damages for British-Nigerian singer who was a Conservative candidate for the Greater London Assembly falsely accused of being a supporter of South African apartheid)
Edward Garnier
One of David Cameron’s former top legal advisers tried to stop a Labour MP “challenging” Lord Brittan of Spennithorne over child abuse allegations in the Houses of Parliament, it has been claimed.
Sir Edward Garnier from London is knighted by the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, at Buckingham Palace. 2012
He most recently served as Solicitor General for England and Wales[2] from the election of 2010 until the 2012 ministerial reshuffle.[3][4]
He represented Edwina Currie and Lord McAlpine at the High Court following allegations made on Twitter by Sally Bercow, wife of the Commons speaker.[10]
In November 2014 the Daily Telegraph reported allegations that Garnier requested that Simon Danczuk “think very carefully” about what he said to the Home Affairs select committee about Leon Brittan and the missing Westminster paedophile dossier. Danczuk said that Brittan was in poor health and Garnier, an old friend, had been asked to intervene by Brittan’s wife.[35]
In March 2015, he was appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom and therefore granted the title The Right Honourable.[36]
Patti Boulaye is a Lady Ratling [the Grand Order of Lady Ratlings is a showbusiness charitable organisation].
What was your best business decision?
Stephen Komlosy
Senior Partner City & Westminster Corporate Finance LLP
Marrying my husband, Stephen Komlosy, who had managed such acts as Lionel Bart and Mike Berry
I met Stephen in 1976 when I was in The Black Mikado at the Cambridge Theatre, London. We went to The Dorchester for tea and in the taxi back to the theatre, he proposed. I’d known him for two hours. I thought he was mad – but I said yes.
Over the years, Patti has worked for charities and served on the committees of eight British charities and she has been a patron of five, including Eastside Educational Trust, Barnardo’s, SOS and Women Into Business. Patti was also a Founder Member and Patron of (HRH Prince Michael of Kent) Enterprise Club for GENESIS, the facilitator organisation for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the promotion of Small Business. She is also on the Advisory Board of The Iman-Foundation Worldwide, which promotes dialogue and challenges extremism to bring about change. Patti is a Patron of The Commonwealth Resound as well as The British Monarchist Society.
During a visit to Africa and by another twist of fate, Patti was introduced to 60 babies who were saved from being buried alive because they were HIV positive. On her return to England Patti was determined to do something about the affect and stigma of HIV on the lives of African villagers.
She formed a charity Support For Africa and asked the Rt. Hon Sir John Major KG CH and other prominent persons to be Patrons, all of whom agreed and her charity has built 5 clinics in Africa and helped to build a School in Lesotho with Prince Harry’s Charity Sentebale. Patti hired the Royal Albert Hall for a charity event, which she presented and organised. This was the first of her sell-out “Reaching Out For Africa” events, which she co-produced with Major Sir Michael Parker KCVO CBE at the Royal Albert Hall, starring Sir Cliff Richard, Gabrielle, Uri Geller, Patti herself and BONEY M, amongst others and featured 3,000 Gospel singers whom Patti put together herself.
The event was supported by The Rt. Hon Michael Portillo, Frederick Forsyth CBE, The Rt. Hon Iain Duncan Smith, The Rt. Hon Paul Boateng, The Rt. Hon. Lord Greville Janner QC and the new Miss World. Patti’s second sell out Royal Albert Hall charity event was Football Reaching Out For Africa (FROFA) and starred, among others, footballer Didier Drogba of Chelsea FC, Simon Callow, Boney M, Christopher Biggins, Greg Dyke, David James and The Rt. Hon. Charles Kennedy. Patti also produced ‘Scotland Reaching Out For Africa’ supported by Lord McConnell the then First Minister and Alex Salmond the current First Minister, Football manager Alex McLeish, Leo Sayer, Mazie Willams and Boney M.
Unite unites with Boulaye and digs in to African challenge
Patti Boulaye, actress, singer, motivational speaker, and her husband Stephen Komlosy, who recently invested in Aim-listed mining company Platinum Diversified, hosted a reception last week with Lord Janner at the House of Lords. It was designed to raise cash for her Africa charity.
During the evening, she extracted £25,000 from Bristol-based student housebuilder Unite to help build her next medical centre in Cameroon. It’s Unite’s first overseas project.
Her “network”
Stephen Komlosy, Keith Vaz MP, Moira Stuart and Patti Boulaye at the House of Parliament
^ Boulaye is very good friends with Uri Geller
Peter Ainsworth
In 1994 Ainsworth became the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Jonathan Aitken, and in 1995 became PPS to the Secretary of State for National Heritage, Virginia Bottomley. He was promoted by John Major in 1996 to the Whips’ Office. When the Major government fell the following year he remained a whip in opposition and was promoted to Deputy Chief Whip by William Hague.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ainsworth
At the Support Africa HIV, AIDS and Malaria charity event in London with the Princess of Yugoslavia in 2001 CREDIT: REX FEATURES
There may well be another grand gesture tonight from the other star of her show: Didier Drogba, the Chelsea footballer still reeling from the departure of his coach and mentor Jose Mourinho. Drogba is a passionate, articulate man from the Ivory Coast who is loved as a singer back home as well as as a sportsman. He will appear with his own band – but with a microphone in his hand and a sympathetic audience listening, it’s easy to imagine the apparently furious striker telling the world what he really thinks of Roman Abramovich.
Boulaye, of course, would prefer him to talk about the Aids clinic he is opening in the Ivory Coast, one of four started by her charity Support For Africa.”Football is the only language that men in Africa understand,” she says, explaining why she has recruited Drogba to help get her message across to young black men here and on her home continent. A team’s worth of Premiership stars have said they will try to be at the concert. “You know what it’s like with footballers: they don’t turn up for anything. But they will this time.”
Would they dare do otherwise? Boulaye is an overwhelming personality who may smile a lot but is also ferociously determined. Sceptics beware: she believes she has God on her side. “I wake up every morning and I say, ‘Lord, send the ministering angels to help me. I can’t do it on my own.'”
She tells how the Lord (and the Professional Footballers’ Association) led her to big, intimidating Lauren the Arsenal defender who is a pussycat really and even turned up to a reception at the House of Lords on crutches and has opened another of the clinics and if all this sounds a bit breathless it is because that is how she makes you feel as she lurches quickly from one topic of conversation to the next, as if there is so much to say and so little time to say it.
There was a more earthly reason why she fell out of favour, surely? Like sharing a rally platform with Jim Davidson and Margaret Thatcher, when Thatcher was being accused of flirting with National Front policies and blamed for race riots?
She backed Thatcher.
This daughter of a prominent Nigerian politician also developed unlikely friendships in high circles, most notably Sir John Major. “I still adore him. He understands Africans.” In time William Hague asked her to help shift the image of the Tories during the race for Mayor of London. “Oh boy,” she says. “It was the biggest mistake I ever made.”
Newspapers assumed she was running for election, even though she says she wasn’t. Then a Guardian interview quoted her as saying she believed in sticking up loyally for unfashionable causes, including (quite astonishingly for a black Anglo-African) “apartheid”. The words the reporter misheard were “a party”, meaning the Tories. The Guardian apologised and paid damages. But Boulaye had acquired the image of a loose cannon with some dubious views.
She also defended fellow Conservative Jeffrey Archer after he made racist comments about black Britons. [16] Boulaye rallied to Archer’s defence, claiming, “I am talking as a black woman who knows Jeffrey Archer very well…and he is not a racist. I think he would make a very good mayor.”.[15]
She has a business called Bipada – The business provides training in skills, confidence and etiquette.
BIPADA Academy for Personal & General Protocol
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BIPADA is a leading expert in Personal Protocol, Public and Media Relations for diplomatic, personal and corporate clients. We offer personalised 1-2-1 as well as group training for PAs, Concierge and service based organizations. We work with diplomats and their families to ease the cultural shocks that sudden transfers can produce. We enhance the style, presence, empathy and confidence in our clients.
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BIPADA‘s Team of Experts have collaborated with governments including the British and US governments, Royal Families, the London Stock Exchange and major Television companies. They have organized top international diplomatic protocol meetings and events involving Presidents, Prime Ministers and Heads of Government. Our team of experts are in demand for their knowledge of the diplomatic modus operandi and the right temperament needed for challenging situations.
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BIPADA specialties include Personal Image Management, Public Speaking and Stage Presence. We have unequalled services including our 3 Days Intensive Certification Courses at Oxford University. We also provide tutorials and guided visits to British museums, a Royal Palace in London.
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BIPADA Academy organizes workshops and training sessions in Empathy and Confidence for front of house staff. We breathe new life into any workforce and increase the company’s chances of staying ahead of the competition. BIPADA Academy helps employers solve the problems of employees that lack people skills, which threatens to destroy the business and drive away clients.
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We are planning a project to help young people from inner-city schools, through our young Ambassadors Programme, develop valueable Life Skills.
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The Bipada Network Launch Event will take place on November 25th in The Library Bar at The Club Café Royal
Some of the Attendees – The Network
HRH Princess Katarina of Yugoslavia & Serbia. A great niece of HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh
Grant Harrold
Etiquette Expert and Butler Trainer. Former Royal Butler to The Prince of Wale
Jess Conrad OBE Actor and Singer
http://www.bipada.com/the-network
(Patti Boulaye) PATRICIA NGOSI KOMLOSY- 26 Directorships
https://companycheck.co.uk/director/900987683/MS-PATRICIA-NGOSI-KOMLOSY/summary
Book Launch of Boulaye Book – From her Bipada Business website
The Faith of a Child
Patti Boulaye OBE
The Faith of a Child was officially launched on 10th March 2017 at The Athenaeum Hotel, Piccadilly.
Guests included HRH Princess Katarina of Serbia, the world’s No 1 Best Selling author Lord Jeffrey Archer, Lord Julian Fellowes (Creator of Downton Abbey, Gosford Park), Lady Emma Fellowes, Lorna Byrne (Angels in my Hair), TV Presenter Tim Vincent, songwriter and author Mitch Murray, actresses Vicki Michelle (Allo Allo), Ann Mitchell (Eastenders), Joan Hooley (Eastenders), Radio Presenter Lizzie Cundy, singer Leee John (Imagination) and famous photographer Richard Young.
Do you give regularly to charity?
I still run Support for Africa, although we are not fundraising at the moment.
The three Nigerian clinics have been gifted to the local communities. The two in Cameroon are administered by the Cameroon Baptist Health Services. The school in Lesotho belongs to and is administered by Sentebale, Prince Harry’s charity.
I still do a lot of other charity work of course. I have just become a Lady Ratling [the Grand Order of Lady Ratlings is a showbusiness charitable organisation
Patron: Lady Sheila Butlin
President of the Cup of Kindness: Barbara Windsor M.B.E.
The Grand Order of Lady Ratlings (established in 1929) welcomes professional performers and those directly connected with the theatrical profession.
The ultimate accolade for a member is to become Queen Ratling, who presides for one year over the Lodges as well as the charitable work of the Order.
Ex-Celtic Boys Club coach accused of abuse returns to UK
May 3 2017
Ex-Celtic boys club coach Jim Torbett has left the United States and returned to the UK following a visit from US Homeland Security, the BBC has learned.
The BBC understands US officials ensured that Torbett left the country, from Oakland International Airport bound for London. It is not known where he travelled from there.
Torbett was visited by officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) – Homeland Security’s specialist investigative arm – within 24 hours of BBC Scotland story and agreed to leave the country voluntarily.
A US government source told the BBC that Ice officers visited him in Modesto, California.
They have not yet established that Torbett had violated any visa requirements, but advised Torbett that if it was established he had – and he was still in the US – they would look to apply the full effect of US law.
The source also said Torbett volunteered to leave the US during the course of the interview.
The BBC also understands Torbett will be added to a list of people who will not be permitted to enter the US again and that Ice officers are satisfied that the issue for them is now closed.
Mark Daly (back) with Jim Torbett (centre) and a man believed to be William Gilbert
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-39797325
Paedophile former Celtic Boys Club football coach Jim Torbett is tracked down in a Californian shopping centre as he denies latest abuse claims
- Jim Torbett, 69, who was the founder of Celtic Boys Club in Scotland, was jailed in 1998 for two years for abusing three young footballers between 1967 and 1974
- But new allegations against him have risen over alleged abuse in the 80s and 90s
- Torbett was tracked down and confronted in America by BBC Scotland reporter
- It is unlikely that he declared his conviction when applying for entry to the US
- Ex-coach denied being a paedophile and said he’ll see alleged victims in court
May 2 2017
A British paedophile football was tracked down in a Californian shopping centre amid fresh claims of sexual abuse.
Jim Torbett, 69, who was the founder of Celtic Boys Club in Scotland, was jailed in 1998 for two years for abusing three young footballers – including ex-Scotland international Alan Brazil.
He was only ever convicted for crimes between 1967 and 1974.
But new allegations against him have risen, after former player Kenny Campbell and another man said they were also victims of abuse from Torbett in the 80s and 90s.
BBC Scotland reporter Mark Daly tracked Torbett down and confronted him at a shopping centre in Modesto, California
A major police investigation is under way and he is expected to be questioned on his return from America.
It’s believed he is in the country on an Esta – which means he can only stay there for 90 days.
But questions have been raised as to how he was granted entry into the US with a child abuse conviction and it has been suggested that the paedophile did not declare this on his visa application.
He said: ‘For two days we watched as he and a man the BBC understands to be William Gilbert worked in the garden and washed cars. But with strict trespassing laws in the US, in order to put our questions to him, we needed Torbett to set foot on a public pavement.
‘When they left to go to a local shopping centre, we followed, two cars behind. The pair entered a shop, and we waited for them to emerge. Mr Gilbert recognised me and attempted to stop us.
‘We waited for around 10 tense minutes as Mr Gilbert patrolled the area. Torbett then emerged from the shop, and I began to ask my questions.
‘Mr Torbett declined to answer the majority of the questions I put to him about the abuse claims, but when asked what he had to say to Kenny Campbell, he answered: ‘I have a lot to say. I’ll see him in court.’
‘He denied being a paedophile.’
Celtic Boys Club was founded by Torbett in 1966 and they became an unofficial feeder club for Celtic FC.
When then-manager of the Glasgow giants, Jock Stein, heard that he had been abusing children, Torbett was booted out. But the police were never called.
After Stein’s departure as manager, Torbett returned in the 1980s.
Alleged victim Campbell, from Lanarkshire, claimed he was abused in 80s, when he joined Celtic Boys Club in 1986.
Speaking on BBC programme Football Abuse: The Ugly Side of The Beautiful Game last month, he said: ‘I feel aggrieved at that if they had never let him back in, it would have f*****g never happened in the first place.
‘I could have had a normal life, normal people round about me.
‘If Celtic had done their due diligence as they always say. And it wouldn’t have happened to me.’
Campbell said he turned to drink and drugs as a result of the abuse of Torbett, who had befriended his parents and even spent one Christmas Day with them.
Another victim who spoke to the BBC said Torbett abused him dozens of times over three years from 1990.
The documentary also revealed police have spoken to several others.
Sports radio presenter and ex-Scotland striker Alan Brazil said he was abused Torbett in the 1970s and it ruined his dream of playing for Celtic.
In his 2007 autobiography, the former Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur forward, now 57, said he was preyed on as a 13-year-old.
He said Torbett – jailed for three counts of shameless indecency in 1998 – would invite youngsters to his ‘dingy, untidy council flat’ and ply them with ice cream and biscuits, ‘putting his hands all over the lads, kissing them, giving them little pecks’.
Speaking about the abuse he suffered, Brazil added: ‘He found me on the sofa on my own in the lounge. I was bored and wanted to go home. He sat much closer than was comfortable, and without warning he put his hand between my legs. I froze.
‘He started kissing my head and trying to touch the outside of my trousers, but I was wriggling away from him. I remember his horrible swollen face next to mine.
‘He was smiling. He thought this was fun. I was frightened and very confused.’
The US does not have access to the Police National Computer.
But they can request details of criminal convictions on an individual request basis.
Failure to declare previous convictions on an Esta can be a criminal offence in the US.
It is understood Torbett is close to the 90 days maximum and is expected to return to the UK shortly, according to the Daily Record.
Hundreds of paedophiles are using sport clubs to prey on kids with at least one report EVERY DAY
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hundreds-paedophiles-using-sport-clubs-10324994
Former Rangers youth scout Harry Dunn appears in court over alleged historical sex abuse charges
Dunn, 84, from Edinburgh, is also believed to have worked as a talent spotter for clubs including Liverpool and Chelsea
Apr 26 2017
A FORMER Rangers youth scout has appeared in court accused of historical sex abuse charges.
Harry Dunn, 84, is facing one allegation of assault and sodomy and a second charge of assault and attempted sodomy.
Dunn, from Edinburgh, appeared in private at the capital’s sheriff court today where he entered no plea.
The pensioner, who was arrested by police officers in March, was released on bail and the case was continued for further examination.
It is believed Dunn also worked for Liverpool and Chelsea during his scouting career
Police Scotland joined forces across the UK last year in launching an investigation after allegations of historical abuse in football were made public.
The SFA has also set up an independent review into the allegations.
A date for Dunn’s next appearance at court has not been decided as yet.
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Cairney was a senior figure at the club in the 1970s.
Former Celtic Boys Club official, 81, arrested on historical sex abuse charges
The man has been charged with ‘non-recent sexual offences’ and will appear in court tomorrow.
Apr 25 2017
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/former-celtic-boys-club-official-10294924
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09:
Jimmy Johnstone pictured coached at the boys club. Paedophile Frank Cairney was Jimmy Johnstone’s driver.
Trip to Kearny in New Jersey CELTIC BOY’S CLUB By Frank Cairney The Celtic View 02-10-85
Jim Torbett, Hugh Birt, Jim McNally, Frank Cairney, Kevun Kelly & Frank Conner
CELTIC’S SUPER BABES Evening Times 15-06-84, p29
Tommy Burns with his friend Frank Cairney Shame spanned three decades Daily Record 13-11-98, p7
Glasgow Sheriff Court heard that pictures taken of young boys were hidden in a store room at Celtic Park for nearly 20 years by John Cullen.
The photographs were found by cleaners who reported the discovery to their bosses – who then called the police.
Cullen, 49, pleaded guilty to a charge of lewd and libidinous behaviour. He will be sentenced next month.
Black bag
The court heard on Friday that in May 2002, cleaners were clearing out a store room at the club where Cullen kept his camera equipment.
They found a black bag and opened it to check if it was rubbish.
But the staff found bundles of black and white pictures of young boys who were either nude or semi-nude.
They reported the find to management and the police were called in.
Cullen, of Shawbridge Street, Pollokshaws, Glasgow, was questioned about the 250 pictures.
He admitted inviting the children to a house in Glasgow between January and December 1982 before getting them to pose for the camera.
Dismissed
The pictures were then locked away in his Celtic Park store room for years.
Cullen first appeared in court last October, but the case was repeatedly adjourned to try and identify the youths.
Despite the help of Scotland Yard’s special paedophile unit, their identities were never discovered.
Liz Ramsey, prosecuting, said it was agreed the boys who were photographed were aged between 10 and 13.
Cullen was dismissed from Celtic Park in June 2002 after working for the club for nearly 30 years.
He had travelled with the club both home working for the official club magazine, The Celtic View.
Frank Cairney, pictured in the 1990s
News of his arrest emerged two weeks after ex-Celtic Boys Club chairman Gerry King was charged over sex abuse claims.
King, 65, was suspended from his job as a primary school teacher following the revelation.
Glasgow City Council ordered him to stay away from St Martha’s Primary, Balornock, after his arrest on February 15.
It came days after fresh accusations were made against club founder Jim Torbett, 69
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/former-celtic-boys-club-official-10294924
Frank Cairney & close friend of Celtic manager Tommy Burns David Moyes, Pat Nevin & Jim McInally in the 1979 Celtic Boys Club
CELTIC’S SEEDY PAST https://scepticpeg.wordpress.com/2016/12/05/celtics-seedy-past/ … via @wordpressdotcom
Between 1983/1990 Rangers FC had only 2 chief scouts
Both of them are now revealed as prolific paedophiles
That’s got to be investigated don’t you think?
I’m asking you about Jock Wallace and his close friend paedophile Harry Dunn?
and the odds of 2 child rapists succeeding each other at the same club?
Will you be commenting on this the same as you did with Celtic boys club @LordMcConnell
(Adrian Dillon @meemammy_ @bbcmarkdaly
They haven’t asked us for contact details of alleged victim. Neither has Celtic. Nor Hibs.
And maybe how former Rangers FC director and player Gordon Smith came to have a convicted child pornographer as his agent
an individual called Jonathon Hope
Jonathan Hope pictured answering his door to a Record reporter at his home in Ayr
Child porn shame of football agent Jonathan Hope who tried to gag the Daily Record
JONATHAN Hope, who claims to have been involved in striker Danny Welbeck’s £16million transfer from Manchester United to Arsenal, was jailed for six months in 2003 for child porn offences.
10 OCT 2014
A SCOTS football agent who claims to have contacts at Britain’s biggest clubs was jailed for six months for downloading child porn, the Record can reveal today.
Shameless Jonathan Hope, 35, from Ayrshire, tried to stop us revealing his child porn conviction and jail term.
He engaged lawyers to fight the Daily Record in the Court of Session.
But his gagging bid collapsed yesterday when his lawyers pulled out of representing him – 15 minutes before the case was to be heard.
We can now reveal that the agent’s true identity is not Jonathan Hope but Steven Hope – the name under which he was jailed in 2003.
We can also reveal how Hope enraged parents at a youth football team by sponsoring the club’s shirts – meaning his name was emblazoned on the back of an under-nine team’s jerseys.
A disgusted parent who found out about his child porn conviction contacted us to blow the whistle on him – prompting his now failed bid to stop us reporting it.
Married father-of-one Hope is a former RAF police officer who now claims he is a leading football agent and a “celebrity” in the world of sport.
But authorised soccer agents need to be licensed by a football governing body and Hope is not licensed as an agent by either the English FA or the SFA. Nor does he appear on the FIFA list of licensed agents.
And at least two of the clubs he claims to have had dealings with say they’ve done no business with him.
He was jailed at Bedford Crown Court under his real first name, Steven.
That means his past is not revealed when people do internet searches on him using his assumed name, Jonathan.
The football team were not aware of his conviction until we alerted them
The angry parent who contacted us said: “A man convicted of child porn setting it up so his name is on the back of children’s football strips is quite troubling, to say the least.”
Bodybuilder Hope – who regularly posts pictures of his muscle-bound body on the internet – also has convictions under his current name for an unprovoked assault on a pub landlord and for drink driving.
Despite his child porn conviction, Hope visited an orphanage in the poverty-stricken Democratic Republic of Congo in 2012.
He posted pictures and a video of a visit there to donate football boots. But the orphanage struggled to get in touch with him after his visit.
Hope claimed in court papers submitted by his lawyers that he had no idea his name would appear on the shirts of the youth football team, who we are not naming.
The documents also claimed he is a “celebrity” whose business would be damaged by publication of the child porn conviction.
Hope maintained he hadn’t known his name would feature on the youth team’s shirts – despite having put a message on Twitter on September 22 saying he was “hopefully going to design a new kit” for the players.
Asked about his jail term, Hope said: “My conviction was years ago and there’s no story here.”
He claims he brokers transfer deals for big-name footballers, including Arsenal star Danny Welbeck.
But both Welbeck and Arsenal insisted Hope was not known to them and had no part in negotiations during Welbeck’s £16million move from Manchester United.
An Arsenal spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that Jonathan Hope has no connection to either Arsenal or Danny Welbeck and was not involved with the negotiations to bring Danny to the club.”
When the Daily Record visited his £150,000 rented home in Ayrshire, Hope showed our reporter messages claiming to be from Tottenham Hotspur owner Daniel Levy and a senior finance boss at Manchester United.
But a Manchester United spokesman said: “This man has had no dealings with Manchester United.
“He is not and has not been involved in the club or with any deals involving players including Danny Welbeck.”
A spokesman for Tottenham added: “We have had contact from Mr Hope in the past in his guise as an agent, but have had no dealings or meetings with him whatsoever.”
Hope was on radio stations including talkSPORT and BBC Radio 5 Live on transfer deadline day last month, talking about his supposed role in deals including Welbeck’s move.
Speaking to talkSPORT on August 31, he said: “Danny doesn’t want to go on loan. He wants a straight transfer and he has every right to say that.
“In the last half an hour I have received some interest in a straight transfer which I’m going to speak to Manchester United about.”
Both stations say they will not offer Hope airtime in future after our revelations.
Hope was convicted in 2003 on three counts of downloading depraved images – including a seven-minute video showing a girl of about eight engaging in sex acts with a man.
He was thrown out of the RAF after the case.
The Record previously exposed Hope in 2006 when, under his real name, he was putting together a fundraiser for Ayrshire Hospice involving former terror chief Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair.
The Daily Record has now begun proceedings to recover our legal costs from Hope. He also faces a substantial bill from the solicitors he instructed to pursue us. Read Record View: Shame on you here.
Football agent jailed for child porn falsely claimed he was patron of James Bulger Charity
Victim claims abuse on Manchester United trip
10 November 2017
A 61-year-old man from Glasgow has told the BBC he was sexually abused on a football trip to Manchester United in the late 1960s.
James, who wants to keep his anonymity, believes he was “trafficked” to English football clubs by the Marist Brothers, a Catholic order which ran his school.
He said he was repeatedly abused by the brothers at his primary school.
In a statement, Manchester United said it had found no information relating to the Marist Brothers in its review.
The Old Trafford club looked into historical abuse as part of the English FA’s inquiry, led by barrister Clive Sheldon QC.
It is looking at the way clubs or the FA dealt with concerns over child sex abuse between 1970 and 2005.
Initiation ceremony
However, James said he thought his abuse happened on a trip in 1969, when he was 12 or 13.
James told the BBC he was in a group of “elite” young footballers who were selected by his school to take part in a tournament in Manchester.
The boys were taken to Old Trafford and the club’s training ground, where they played matches and toured the stadium, the boot room and directors’ offices.
James said he had visions of becoming a Manchester United player like his heroes George Best and Bobby Charlton but he said he was taken from the hostel where the boys were staying and sexually abused.
He said he did not know who abused him but he was taken outside as part of an “initiation ceremony”.
“It was non-consensual sex,” he said.
“Adult and a child.”
James said he did not know if other young footballers were also abused.
“None of us ever spoke about it,” he said.
According to James, he was not aware at the time that it was abuse.
It was portrayed as part of the “football journey” of going down to the club and possibly becoming a professional footballer.
He said: “I believe I was forced to do it because of my previous experience. I thought there was no escape, I had to take the action.”
His previous abuse was at the hands of the Marist Brothers who ran his primary school, the Sacred Heart Primary School in the east end of Glasgow.
James said he was regularly beaten around the lower body by branches with thorns, belts or by hand for not knowing the answers to questions about the Mass.
He told the BBC he would soil himself when he was beaten and his sister would be sent for to take him out of class.
Grooming process
“That then led to an increase in the abuse which began by befriending you, telling you that you weren’t a bad person, you were a good person,” he said.
“All part of the grooming process, then on to sitting on the knee,.
“Then, after the beatings, removing the clothing to make sure there were no marks.
“And then other sexual activity.”
The beatings stopped when James moved to high School.
But a more sinister form of abuse began, he said.
James said he was sent for a “holiday” to Fort Augustus school in the Highlands where BBC Scotland has uncovered evidence that widespread abuse took place.
He was also sent to Pluscarden Abbey. Both were run by the Benedictine order.
He said he was abused by monks there.
James said he was also abused when his football team were sent to English football clubs.
“I realise now I was trafficked,” he said.
“I didn’t realise that at the time.
“But there is a link between the abuse in the primary school – the Marist Brothers.
“A link to the Marist Brothers sending me to Fort Augustus and Pluscarden to the Benedictines and the Marist Brothers then sending me to the football clubs.”
He said: “My understanding was these clubs were more or less looking at us for potentially signing for the clubs.
“The type of player I was playing football with went on to be professional football players, to be professional football managers and professional coaches at the highest level in the Scottish Football Association.”
Internal investigation
Manchester United said: “We have no knowledge or records of any allegations of this nature.
“However, If we are provided with further details and they allege involvement of anyone connected with the club, we will of course investigate further and involve all appropriate authorities.”
The Marist Brothers no longer run schools in Scotland but they maintain a house in Glasgow.
In a statement the order’s lawyers said it took all allegations against it seriously, and referred them to police and an internal investigation.
It said: “The allegations in question were investigated by the police, and the Scottish Catholic Safeguarding Service confirmed our clients have done all that is possible regarding the allegations made.”
“James wants the public to know about the scandal of the historic trafficking of children round the UK.
“He wants more survivors of sexual abuse to come forward so that the perpetrators of this abuse and the institutions that protected them are held to account and we will continue to support him as he campaigns to achieve this.”
SFA ‘asleep on the job’ leaving kids at risk from sex predators
Apr 26 2017
MSPs demand football chiefs take urgent action as they accuse SFA of complacency and SYFA of misleading government officials over background checks.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/sfa-asleep-job-leaving-kids-10295938
The Ugly Side of the Beautiful Game
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5hrziz_bbc-scotland-the-ugly-side-of-the-beautiful-game_sport
Man, 81, held in Scotland over sexual abuse in youth football
The historical sexual offence claim is the latest in a long line from former players across the UK.
An 81-year-old man has been charged by police in Scotland investigating alleged historical sexual abuse in youth football.
The man, understood to be former Celtic Boys Club official Frank Cairney, is expected to appear in court on Wednesday.
A spokeswoman for Police Scotland said: “An 81-year-old man has been detained and charged in connection with non-recent sexual offences.”
The sport has been hit by claims from former players across the UK that they were abused by people in positions of authority.
Police Scotland launched a major inquiry into non-recent child abuse in youth football at the end of last year.
A number of professional clubs have started internal investigations, while the SFA has set up an independent review into allegations across the game in Scotland.
http://news.sky.com/story/man-81-held-in-scotland-over-sexual-abuse-in-youth-football-10850883
Ex-Celtic Boys Club coach & chairman Gerard King suspended from job as PRIMARY TEACHER amid Child Sex Abuse charge
14 APR 2017
Former Celtic Boys Club coach and chairman Gerard King was suspended from his job at St Martha’s Primary School after his arrest but strongly denies the allegations.
Gerald King, 65, who coached kids for more than 20 years, has been suspended from his job at St Martha’s Primary School in Glasgow.
The claims have emerged as police investigate a range of historic allegations of football-related child abuse across Scotland.
King, known as Gerry, was suspended after his arrest in February.
King also confirmed that he is a former chairman of Celtic Boys Club, which has been rocked by historic sex abuse scandals.
But he insisted the police investigation was not related to his years there and said he not been chairman of the club for around eight years.
He insisted: “It’s got nothing to do with the boys’ club at all. It’s the school.”
King has taught a number of subjects at St Martha’s in Balornock, Glasgow. But he said the allegations against him, which date back three decades, were linked specifically to sport.
He said: “They’re 30 years ago. You’ve got things in place so it couldn’t happen and they’ve said it did. I have been advised by the lawyer not to say anything.”
He said: “Everybody has got different teams. I worked there for about a year but only on a Saturday afternoon.”
About his time as chairman of the boys’ club, he said: “That was about eight years ago. We left that to the younger ones – we did our stint.”
King’s association with Celtic Boys Club dates back to the early 1980s. In 1982-83, he helped run the under-12 team which won an invitational event in Rotterdam, Holland.
https://spidercatweb.blog/2017/04/14/celtic-school-teacher-csa-paedo/
Celtic Boys’ Club sex predator Jim Torbett given second chance to abuse young players
11 APR 2017
BBC documentary says Torbett was allowed to return to the Boys’ Club after initial allegations while also revealing how former Rangers and Hibs coach Gordon Neely abused kids.
A bombshell TV documentary last night revealed how sex predator Jim Torbett was allowed to return to Celtic Boys’ Club – only a few years after he was kicked out for abusing youth players.
The BBC Scotland programme spoke to more than 20 victims of sex abuse in football and shed light on how big clubs and police missed opportunities to stop known offenders.
The programme, Football Abuse: The Ugly Side of the Beautiful Game, exposed the blatant methods of serial abusers like Celtic Boys’ Club founder Torbett, who was brought to justice after an award-winning Daily Record investigation in the 80s.
It also reveals graphic accounts of abuse by former Rangers and Hibs coach Gordon Neely, from his time at both clubs and with youth club Hutchison Vale.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/celtic-boys-club-sex-predator-10198909
Alleged victims told the programme that Torbett was able to return to Celtic – even though he as known to be an abuser – which enabled him to attack more victims.
Torbett was only ever convicted for crimes committed up to 1974.
But alleged survivor Kenny Campbell claims he was abused after legendary manager Jock Stein – who booted Torbett out of the boys’ club over child abuse claims – had left Celtic.
Torbett was welcomed back in 1980.
Kenny, of Uddingston, Lanarkshire, moved to Celtic’s reserves in 1989 after three years with Celtic Boys’ Club.
He said: “I feel aggrieved at that if they had never let him back in it would have never happened in the first place, I could have had a normal life, normal people round about me.
“If Celtic had done their due diligence, as they always say, it wouldn’t have happened to me.”
Kenny has fought to get his life back on track after the abuse resulted in drink and drug problems.
He said that after he joined Celtic Boys’ Club at 13, Torbett won the trust of his parents, even spending a Christmas Day with them.
But he added that the abuse soon started and escalated to the point where Torbett was giving him cash – sometimes up to £530 on one day.
Kenny also claimed, in graphic detail, how up to three boys were abused at the same time in his flat.
Another victim who spoke to the BBC said Torbett abused him dozens of times over three years from 1990.
Torbett was jailed for two years in 1998 for sexually abusing three young players between 1967 and 1974.
Ex-Scotland international Alan Brazil was among those to testify against his former coach.
The BBC programme said they had spoken to three other former Celtic Boys’ Club officials – who were employed at the time in question – who also say they were told Torbett was sacked by Stein after complaints Torbett had abused boys. But police were never called.
The show also alleged that Torbett’s departure from Celtic Boys Club was described in club magazine The Celtic View as a business decision – amounting to a “massive cover-up.”
The programme also features a photograph of Stein, the Boys’ Club honorary president, presenting an award to Torbett for services to the club three years after kicking him out.
The documentary claimed directors at Celtic would have known that Torbett had been accused of abuse prior to having him back at Celtic Boys’ Club in 1980, where he stayed until 1996.
Torbett was out of the country when the BBC tried to approach him but he denies the new allegations of abuse.
BBC investigator Mark Daly also spoke to alleged survivors of notorious Gordon Neely, who abused young players for decades.
Survivors provided harrowing accounts of how they were targeted while Neely was a coach at Hibs and later at Rangers, who were not tipped off about the predator.
Rangers claim that when they discovered Neely was a dangerous pervert, they informed police – but
the BBC could find no trace of such a complaint.
Neely, who died of cancer three years ago, later abused young footballers on residential courses at Dalguise House, Dunkeld, Perthshire.
Victim Jon Cleland, from Dunfermline, was abused by Neely from the age of 11 while a player for Hutchison Vale in 1982 and later while training with Hibs.
He added: “I can’t be a hundred percent sure but it was at least eight to 10 times over the space of 18 months.”
Another survivor gave details of being attacked by Neely at Hibs in his office at the club in 1984.
Hibs failed to report the coach to the police, enabling him to progress to Rangers with his reputation intact, under the management of Graeme Souness and Walter Smith in 1986.
The abuse allegedly continued at Ibrox. Rangers fired him in 1990 after an accusation of inappropriate behavior.
One former Rangers youth player, referred to as George in the programme, said: “He had his own office inside Ibrox and he’d call you in and he’d make you close the door… I was only about 13.”
After Rangers got rid of Neely, he ran football courses at Dalguise House, where more abuse took place.
One survivor, referred to as Paul, played for Edinburgh clubs between 1995 and 1998.
Paul’s alleged abuse took place around a decade after complaints about Neely were made to Hibs – and more than five years after a complaint was made at Rangers.
Survivors also told of being abused by a major scout, who is still alive but who can’t be named for legal reasons.
The scout worked for Rangers and Hibs, as well as English giants Chelsea and Liverpool.
Hibs failed to report Gordon Neely to police and he eventually joined Rangers
A spokesman for Celtic told BBC Scotland the Boys’ Club was a “separate and distinct” organisation from Celtic Football Club but asked anyone with concerns to contact them.
They added: “It was vital that justice was served at that time, due to the extremely serious nature of this issue.
In a statement to the BBC, Hibs said they were “saddened to be told” that personnel at the club at the time were “allegedly made aware of concerns” about Neely and allegedly did not contact the police with the concerns.
They said “current policies and practices” would “prevent this from happening today.”
Rangers told us they were aware of an alleged incident more than 25 years ago. They said: “It is understood” the individual was “dismissed immediately” and that the “police were informed”.
Police Scotland told the BBC they could not confirm whether Rangers made a complaint or not. No trace of a police report being sent to the procurator fiscal could be found.
More than 80 men involved in football are being investigated by police across the UK.
Among them are John Hart, former physiotherapist at Partick Thistle, Jim McCafferty, ex-youth coach and kitman at Celtic, Hibs and Falkirk, and Hugh Stevenson, who was a youth coach and referee.
Police have received more than 130 claims of child sex abuse within Scottish football since November.
www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/celtic-boys-club-sex-predator-10198909
SFA appeals for child abuse victims to come forward after shocking BBC investigation
Apr 11 2017
The Scottish Football Association have appealed for any abuse victims to contact them as fresh allegations of sexual offences in youth football came to light.
A BBC documentary heard from alleged victims of a Celtic Boys Club coach and revealed new claims about former youth coach Gordon Neely, who died in 2014.
Two players at the boys club, which was a separate entity from Celtic Football Club, told the programme Football Abuse: The Ugly Side Of The Beautiful Game they were abused for three and four years respectively in the 1980s and 90s.
The sport has been rocked by claims from former players across the UK that they were abused by people in positions of authority, and Police Scotland launched a major inquiry into non-recent child abuse in football at the end of last year.
In February, the force said it had received 140 reports of alleged abuse.
A number of professional clubs have started internal investigations, while the SFA has set up an independent review into allegations across the game in Scotland.
Detective Chief Inspector Sarah Taylor, from the National Child Abuse Investigation Unit, said: “Child abuse is incredibly difficult for people to revisit and to talk about.
“Our officers are highly specialist and are trained to deal with all reports sensitively. We would ask anyone who has been the victim of abuse, or has information about potential abuse, to contact us.
“We will listen and we will investigate and our first priority will be to ensure that there are no children at risk now.
“If you have suffered sexual abuse, or if you can assist this investigation or you know anyone who may have been a victim, then please call Police Scotland on 101. Or you can call the NSPCC helpline on 0800 023 2642.”
SFA chief executive Stewart Regan said: “The independent review into allegations of historic child sexual abuse in Scottish football is currently under way and we await its findings.
“The latest allegations are a matter for the investigatory authority, Police Scotland.
“We would urge anyone who has suffered abuse to come forward using the dedicated, confidential NSPCC 24-hour helpline 0800 023 2642, directly to the police on 101 or via email to the Scottish FA at childrenswellbeing@scottishfa.co.uk.”
Matt Forde, national head for NSPCC Scotland, said: “The latest allegations about abuse in football are concerning.
“It’s clear that for far too long, hundreds of people suffered abuse as children in football and elsewhere without feeling able to speak up and seek help.
“But it is encouraging that so many are finally finding their voice in a new climate where they know they will be listened to and supported. Their bravery in coming forward should be commended.”
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Fr. Denis O’Connell, Jimmy Savile, Jock Stein & Kevin Kelly (Celtic Chairman)
Torbett was a director in 2 companies with Kelly and Torbett was a director in the 90s of Fairbridge for vulnerable kids.
Tommy Burns & Liam Brady protected/defended paedophile Frank Cairney
Tommy Burns is deceased, but Liam Brady is still alive.
The Parkhead dream maker who preyed on innocence; SHOCKER: Two sides of boys’ club pervert.
Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland) > August 16, 1996
To a host of football superstars, Frank Cairney is the father figure who made their dreams come true.
They would have walked through fire for the larger-than-life Celtic Boys’ Club boss, who guided them on the road to stardom.
But Cairney hid the darkest of secrets. And to the boys he abused, he’s a pervert who turned their youthful dreams into nightmares.
Since the Record’s revelations about Cairney, many victims – now grown men – have phoned us in tears.
Some talked openly for the first time about abuse that happened more than 20 years ago. And some have had the courage to go to the police.
Yet some of Celtic’s biggest names give Cairney unswerving support.
When Tommy Burns was appointed manager in 1994, Frank Cairney was first to congratulate him.
Burns describes the 56-year-old as “a fantastic help and a true friend”.
When Cairney was unmasked by the Record earlier this week, Burns rushed to his side. Sitting in his pal’s living room, he stormed: “He has the whole of my backing.”
But the calls from boys who claimed Cairney terrorised them were still flooding in to the Daily Record.
Hours after our story appeared, former boys’ club player John Taylor told how Cairney tried to force him into sex acts in hotel rooms.
Another ex-starlet told how Cairney touched his groin as he sat in the front seat of his car.
The lad told him to “f*** off” and Cairney thumped him in the chest.
A third victim said: “Frank Cairney abused me over two and a half years. It screwed up my whole life.
“He used to get me after I took a shower at training. I was too scared to do anything about it, and I have never spoken about this until now.”
Big Frank – he is well over six feet tall and built in proportion – was dumped as Celtic Boys’ Club General Manager in 1991.
It came after an alleged incident involving a young player on an American tour.
Months after his 21-year link with Celtic was severed, a group of past and current Celtic stars organised a tribute evening at a Glasgow church hall.
One man who was there, but asked not to be named, said: “It was like This is Your Life.
“There is no doubt that a lot of very famous Celtic players hold Frank Cairney in the highest regard.”
Former boys’ club player Neil Watt, 34, who went on to play for Stirling Albion, was fulsome in his praise of Cairney. He said: “I can’t speak highly enough about the guy.
“He instilled discipline in the boys that has remained with us.”
On Wednesday of this week, Tommy Burns again sprang to Cairney’s defence, saying: ” I’m sure he will have the backing of several members of the first team who played for him at under-16 level.
“He has trained some of the great names of Celtic, including Roy Aitken, Paul McStay, George McCluskey, Alan Brazil, Pat Nevin, Peter Grant, Andy Ritchie and myself.”
Ex-boss Lou Macari recalled the fierce loyalty Cairney inspired.
He said: “The first team squad and I were asked along to present trophies at the annual boys’ club prizegiving.
“I arrived and there was no sign of any of the players.
“I started phoning round, and they all told me there was no way they would be attending because big Frank had been forced out of the club.
“I was left to hand over every trophy and medal myself.
“But there was no way the players would budge.”
Damning update on UK Football scandal: The lack of co-operation from a number of high-ranking Football Association officials /”rampant Freemasonry”…
The football child abuse scandal just keeps on growing
As fresh cases of abuse continue to emerge, so do examples of official complacency, such as the obstruction and termination in 2003 of an FA review of child protection policies
Apr 2 2017
Operation Hydrant has received reports of child abuse for every year from 2005 – the year the FA’s inquiry cuts off – through to 2016
After everything that has emerged about football’s sexual-abuse scandal – including some extraordinary new details that can be reported today about the lack of co-operation from a number of high-ranking Football Association officials – it can come as a jolt to realise that the problem is not just restricted to what used to be known as the good old days.
Until now, it has widely been thought of as the property of another age. Words such as “historical” or “non-recent” have been applied and the FA certainly seemed to think as much. When the governing body announced in early-December it had commissioned an inquiry into the scandal the terms of reference made it clear it had a cut-off point “up until around 2005”.
That suddenly does not seem so clever, judging by the figures obtained by this newspaper that show 46 of the incidents reported to Operation Hydrant since November, when Andy Woodward’s interview with the Guardian set off what the FA chairman, Greg Clarke, has described as a “tidal wave,” relate to the period from 2005 to 2016. There is not one blank year and, though it can never be an exact science, it would be a mistake to believe this could not involve the sport at its highest level. The specialist police unit in charge of the investigation calculates that 23% of all the referrals (1,016 at the last count) relate to clubs from England’s top four divisions.
These are the numbers, in other words, that dismantle the theory everything goes back to the era – the 1970s and 1980s, predominantly – relating to the majority of the victims, now in their 40s and 50s, who have felt emboldened enough to talk publicly about their ordeals.
Instead, it turns out there have been 187 reported incidents of sexual assaults on junior footballers from the 20-year period beginning in 1996. Twenty-three relate to the years from 2011 onwards and, as if that is not alarming enough, it is also worth keeping in mind the true figure will be considerably higher.
For starters, this data actually goes back 10 weeks to 13 January and therefore covers only the first two months since the scandal erupted. The updated figures will be released by the National Police Chiefs’ Council later this month and it is worth getting the take of Dino Nocivelli, a specialist child-abuse lawyer, on the number of reported incidents – 83 – from 2000 onwards.
Nocivelli has worked on cases involving the Roman Catholic church, the Scout Association and various local authorities and knows from experience that it is often not until victims are in their late 30s or early 40s that they speak out. He is now representing a number of football child-abuse survivors and hopes that the age range will come down on the back of the latest scandal. Nonetheless, he says the figures since the millennium “are very likely the tip of the iceberg”.
For now, all that can really be said with certainty is that it was naive to think this scandal should be talked about only in the past tense and it leaves some awkward questions for the FA bearing in mind its decision, in 2003, to withdraw all funding from a major review of its child-protection policies.
Would football have been a safer place if that five-year research programme had not been abandoned three years early? Would it be too much of a stretch to think a completed project might even have prevented some of the more recent cases? Nocivelli, for one, thinks it is legitimate to link the two. “Questions remain as to why the FA decided to drop the review into safeguarding and whether or not children were subjected to abuse as a result of this decision.”
At the same time, it would certainly be useful to know why so many people at the FA, as well as the sport in general, were openly hostile and obstructive to the team of academics, led by Celia Brackenridge of Brunel University, who conducted the study.
An internal report, seen by this correspondent, states that only four of the 14 FA staff who were asked for interviews bothered to respond. Others, it claims, were “prevented/bullied” from not talking, in keeping with the “wall of silence” the researchers encountered from other areas of the game. “The football community was, in the main, helpful and cooperative about the research but there were also occasions where our fieldworkers faced rudeness, including from people in paid positions and/or in positions of significant authority within the FA,” Brackenridge writes in her notes. “One club official threw the researcher’s ID card back across the table at her; another refused to return numerous telephone calls and even pretended to be someone else on the telephone to avoid being interviewed.”
So, what was it that football objected to so much? And why were there people inside the FA who appear to have been as uncooperative as possible until the organisation’s then head of ethics and sports equity, Tony Pickerin, concluded in one letter – again, seen by this newspaper – that its child-protection budget for 2003 had to be “substantially reduced and the consequence of this will be a much lower level of research activity”? And is it purely just a coincidence that the FA was simultaneously trying to find the money to fund the huge costs of building the new Wembley?
Brackenridge has since made the point that the scale of progress since the 1990s has not been sufficiently acknowledged, saying some FA staff had been “exemplary” and pointing out that the research project, interviewing 189 children and a large number of coaches and administrators, had brought demonstrable improvement.
Yet her experiences at the time “left me asking myself whether some of the senior officers in the game might be simply using CP [child protection] as a kind of ethical fig leaf to cover their embarrassment at the many other problems facing the game – doping, crowd control, bungs and fixes, among others. The more the FA could trumpet their work for children, the better they could deflect attention from the uglier side of the game.”
The sport as a whole can seem hard-faced, to say the least, when it also transpires that the research team – collating information, let’s not forget, to safeguard children – encountered verbal attacks and felt like they were “seen as the police” by some of the people they contacted. One interviewee spoke of “rampant Freemasonry” within the sport. Brackenridge’s notes allude to “organisational inertia” inside the FA and, referring to a year-long delay to sign off the project, concludes that the governing body “did not know what right and left hand were doing”. At the end of the project she says she had to bring in lawyers to force the FA to settle its bills. “On the day we were due to go to court to sue them the money finally came through.” The whole thing sounds a mess.
Perhaps we will get some clarity when Clive Sheldon QC produces what the FA insists ought to be classified as an independent inquiry. Sheldon was appointed at the start of December to judge, among other things, if there had been a cover-up and whether the governing body had been guilty of institutional failures. Yet that, in turn, raises its own questions. However revered Sheldon is in his particular field, how can any inquiry truly be independent when the organisation that is being investigated is also footing the bill?
At least the FA is going through the system – no matter whether you or I agree with the exact processes – whereas it does seem strange that the Football Association of Wales, contrary to its counterparts in England and Scotland, has not thought it necessary when three out of the four police forces in Wales confirmed as long ago as December they were part of the investigation.
Almost four months in, it is perplexing, however, that Sheldon and his research team do not appear to have started interviewing the players who have attracted so much publicity about the events that shaped their lives. It was never going to be a quick process but, after all this time, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise to learn that some of the key witnesses, understandably put out, have started ringing ahead to find out, put bluntly, what the hell is going on.
On a similar theme, can you believe that Crewe Alexandra, even with their consistently unimpressive responses, do not appear to have arranged interviews with any of the relevant former players who have featured in the news during the last four months?
This, more than anything, demonstrates everything that is wrong with the process. It was 26 November – 122 days ago, to be precise – when Crewe announced they would be holding an independent review, declaring they were “determined that a thorough investigation takes place at the earliest opportunity”. Since then, Crewe have refused to say who, if anyone, is leading the inquiry.
On Saturday, when pressed, a spokesperson for Crewe said: “Clubs have been advised not to investigate historical allegations at this stage,” and declined to comment further. They have not supplied a terms of reference and the extensive list of former players you might have thought would be high‑priority calls could probably be forgiven for wondering when, if ever, they will be required to help.
After all this time, their collective suspicion says a lot for what they think of the regime at Gresty Road – the consensus being, as one put it, they “gave up a long time ago”.
Clive Sheldon QC wasn’t the first choice….. echoes of the C S A leadership fiasco
FA forced to replace woman leading review into football’s child sex abuse scandal over independence concerns
6 December 2016
The FA announced the full terms of reference for its internal review today, also revealing Clive Sheldon QC would head it and not Kate Gallafent QC.
The governing body had been criticised for recruiting Gallafent, who has acted for it previously – as well as against it – and whose Blackstone Chambers firm is regularly used by the organisation.
In carrying out the Review, Clive Sheldon QC will be assisted by a team of counsel from 11KBW Chambers: David Bedenham, Katherine Eddy, Zoe Gannon and Leo Davidson. Clive Sheldon QC will also receive expert advice on child protection in sport from Dr Mike Hartill, Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Sport at Edge Hill University.
Mar 24 2017
Ex-football youth scout held over historical abuse claims
Dunn poses for photo with Rangers youth squad
Harry Dunn, 84, who worked for Rangers, Liverpool and Chelsea, has been charged.
Harry Dunn, 84, who worked for Rangers, Liverpool and Chelsea, is now subject to a report to the procurator fiscal, police in Edinburgh confirmed.
A Police Scotland spokesman said: “An 84-year-old man has been arrested and charged with a number of non-recent sexual offences and a report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal.”
https://stv.tv/news/east-central/1384008-former-football-youth-scout-arrested-over-historic-abuse/
Ex-footie starlet claims former Rangers coach Harry Dunn got him drunk and tried to rape him at Edinburgh flat
18th February 2017
Former Ibrox youth player Darren Mixon claims he looked at Dunn as an ‘Uncle’ when he was pinned down on a bed by 25-stone scout for the sex attack
Dunn, 84, worked for Gers, Liverpool and Chelsea after being introduced to scouting by his pal, former Ibrox manager Jock Wallace, who he later followed to Leicester City.
Hibs boss Neil Lennon revealed in his autobiography that when he was 13, Dunn took him and his dad to Ibrox where they had a tour and met Wallace.
Darren has made three statements to police about his assault claims.
He said he kept quiet about it at the time as he felt “humiliated” — but told a pal in 1992 when he learned Dunn was still scouting and escorting young boys around the country.
Friend Tam Smith, formerly a cop and now a social worker, persuaded him to report the attack at St Leonard’s police station in Edinburgh. But Darren didn’t hear back from Lothian and Borders cops and decided not to talk about it again until now.
Police Scotland could not explain why the Lothian and Borders force took no action but confirmed they are investigating Darren’s claims about Dunn.
Ex-Rangers youth scout Harry Dunn abuse fears – FOUR chances to stop ‘perv’ were missed
Harry Dunn’s name was flagged up to the SFA, Liverpool and Chelsea football clubs and police
19th February 2017
Barry Bennell: Former football coach denies 20 child sex offences
Mar 22 2017
The former Crewe Alexandra coach was remanded in custody and the judge said his trial was likely to begin in Liverpool in January.
Former football coach Barry Bennell has denied 20 child sex offences.
Appearing at Chester Crown Court via video link from prison, the former Crewe Alexandra coach was charged with 14 counts of indecent assault, five counts of buggery and one count of attempted buggery.
The charges relate to four complainants who were boys under the age of 16 at the time of the alleged offences.
They are all alleged to have taken place between 1980 and 1987.
Bennell, 63, had already denied eight of the offences and repeated those denials as he was charged with 12 further offences.
The case was adjourned to 3 July when a hearing will take place at Liverpool Crown Court.
As Bennell was remanded in custody, the judge told him a trial was likely to start in January in Liverpool.
As well as Crewe, Bennell also worked as a coach for Manchester City, Stoke and junior teams in northwest England and the Midlands during his career.
http://news.sky.com/story/former-football-coach-barry-bennell-denies-20-child-sex-offences-10810441
Police investigating historic child abuse quiz man over ‘incidents linked to Southampton FC’
Mar 16 2017
POLICE investigating allegations of historic sex abuse in football have questioned a man in Hampshire, it has been revealed.
The 64-year-old was questioned by officers from Hampshire Police carrying out an investigation into allegations of non-recent child abuse within the football community – Operation Quantum.
The man has been questioned by officers in a police custody suite, the force has confirmed.
The investigation is believed to be linked to claims of incidents at Southampton Football Club in the 1980s.
A police spokesman said: “This remains an active, significant, and complex investigation undertaken by specialist officers from Hampshire Constabulary’s Major Crime Team.”
The Daily Echo previously reported how the football club had contacted police over allegations of historical child abuse within football in December.
It came about after two ex-Saints youngsters said they were both victims of sexual abuse they suffered in the 1980s.
Last November, a number of police forces from across the UK launched investigations into allegations of abuse
So far, ten suspects have been identified as the scandal continues to grow.
The Echo previously reported that Greater Manchester Police had said it was investigating reports from 35 people, with its inquiry growing on a “daily basis”.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council also confirmed around 350 people across the country had reported abuse allegations.
In a statement released in December by Southampton FC, the club said: “Hampshire Police and Southampton Football Club are committed to working together to investigate any historical allegations that may be brought to light in the Hampshire area.
“The club has informed Hampshire Police that we will offer our full support to any investigation they undertake, for as long as it takes, and with our full focus.
“The club works closely and tirelessly with the Premier League to promote the safeguarding of children and young people who are under our care or using our facilities, and their well-being is paramount to all staff.”
March 13, 2017
Former football coach Barry Bennell has been remanded in custody charged with 12 child sex offences, 11 of which are alleged to have happened in Derbyshire.
The 63-year-old appeared at South Cheshire Magistrates’ Court in Crewe via video-link from prison accused of seven counts of indecent assault and five counts of committing a serious sexual offence. He will next appear at Chester Crown Court on March 22.
http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/8203-former-football-coach-barry-bennell-accused-of-11-child-sex-offences-in-derbyshire/story-30199598-detail/story.html#dOsoQiGmvoSkyGqR.99
7 March 2017
Former football coach Barry Bennell charged with eight new sexual abuse counts
Former football coach Barry Bennell has been charged with eight further counts of non-recent child sexual abuse.
The alleged incidents relate to two different victims between 1980 and 1987.
Ex-Crewe Alexandra staff member Bennell, 63, was formally charged by Cheshire Police on Tuesday.
He faces three counts of indecent assault – one on a boy under 16 and two on a boy under 14 – as well as four other charges.
Bennell will appear at South Cheshire Magistrates’ Court on March 13.
Man arrested on Teesside over historic abuse claims linked to football
Cleveland Police reveal details of man arrested over claims of ‘non-recent sexual offences against children’
1 MAR 2017
Police have made the first arrest on Teesside in the ongoing probe into historic child abuse in football.
Cleveland Police confirmed a man in his 40s was arrested for “non-recent sexual offences against children”.
In total, eight people have made abuse allegations to the force at “all levels” of the game.
No further details of the suspect or the allegations, such as what club they may centre around, have been disclosed.
But a force spokesperson said: “Cleveland Police has received allegations from eight people of non-recent abuse associated with football at all levels and these allegations are being investigated.
“One man in his 40s was arrested at the end of January in connection with an allegation and he has been bailed pending further inquiries.
“All information relating to non-recent child sexual abuse allegations received by Cleveland Police is being forwarded to Operation Hydrant for the purpose of national operational coordination.
“This involves collating and cross referencing all information received to avoid duplication, and ensure efficient and effective sharing of information.”
Operation Hydrant’s Constable Simon Bailey –
wants a reduction in penalties for child abuse offenders
All FIVE London Premier League clubs are caught up in historic child abuse allegations
- Police today said they are now investigating 255 allegations involving 77 clubs
- Five teams in the Premier League are involved, as well as three in Championship
- Scandal came to light when ex-Crewe Alexandra player opened up on the abuse
- Former Chelsea player Keith Weller and scout Eddie Heath also being probe
Keith Weller, a former Chelsea player, had allegations made against him by two women who claimed he indecently assaulted them
In what is quickly becoming the biggest scandal in the history of British football, 77 clubs from the top flight to non-league are now being investigated by police.
There have now been 255 allegations made since former Crewe Alexandra player Andy Woodward lifted the lid on the murky world of abuse in football by opening up about being abused by ex-coach Barry Bennell.
It is understood that Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham, Tottenham and Crystal Palace are being investigated by the Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: ‘The allegations are connected with individuals at 77 named clubs or teams.
‘The breakdown for those clubs is five in the Premiership, three against Championship clubs, three against clubs in Leagues One and Two and there have also been 66 other named clubs which would include non-league or non-professional or amateur teams.’
Earlier this month, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), which is co-ordinating the nationwide police investigation Operation Hydrant, said more than 500 complainants and 184 potential suspects had been identified.
The inquiry involves up to 248 football clubs, spanning all tiers of the game from the Premier League down to amateur level.
Latest figures show the total number of potential victims standing at 526, with 97 per cent identified as male. Their ages span from 20 to four.
Chelsea have been openly dragged into the scandal, with former player Gary Johnson admitting he was abused as a trainee in the 1970s
A spokesman for Crystal Palace said today: ‘We have had no contact from the Metropolitan Police so we have no idea whether these allegations relate to Crystal Palace FC. Clearly, should we be contacted, we will co-operate fully with any inquiry and give every possible assistance to the police in their investigations.
‘We urge anyone aware of any instances of abuse that have ever taken place at the club, or who has been a victim, to report it to the police or contact the FA’s NSPCC helpline.’
Other clubs are not thought to have commented on the investigations yet.
Chelsea have been openly dragged into the scandal, with former player Gary Johnson admitting he was abused as a trainee in the 1970s by the club’s chief scout Eddie Heath, who is now dead.
The club apologised to Johnson for the abuse he suffered after he waived the confidentiality clause in the £50,000 agreement they made with him in 2015.
Johnson was a member of Chelsea’s first team from 1978 to 1981, but joined the club as an 11-year-old in 1970 and claimed he had been groomed from the age of 13.
Speaking of the impact of the abuse, he said: ‘I felt shame, I felt my childhood had been taken away. I spent my late teens in turmoil, absolute turmoil.’
Two women have also claimed they were indecently assaulted by Keith Weller, who played for Tottenham, Millwall, Chelsea and Leicester and was capped four times by England during a glittering career.
The accusations were first made in 2002 when a number of women told the Metropolitan Police that Weller had molested them as children in the mid-1960s and early 1980s.
Critics said the force’s original handling of the Weller case is an indictment of how child sex-abuse allegations were treated before the Jimmy Savile scandal.
But after an inquiry spanning several months the Crown Prosecution Service ruled no charges should be brought.
Former Crewe player Andy Woodward waived his right of anonymity to reveal that he suffered years of abuse at the hands of the former youth coach Barry Bennell.
In court proceedings it emerged that Bennell had abused one child on Crewe’s training pitches and another at the home of former manager Dario Gradi, who did not know about it.
Bennell also did work for Manchester City and Stoke City before moving to the United States.
He was jailed for nine years in 1998 for sexual offences against children after admitting 23 specimen charges of sexual offences against six boys, aged nine to 15.
Aston Villa FC accused of not reporting paedophile scout to police
Jan 30 2017
One victim said that seniors at the club pressured him not to go public with the abuse.
Birmingham-based football club, Aston Villa, have been accused of not reporting a scout who was sexually abusing boys to the police after they terminated his services because of the alleged offences.
The scout, Ted Langford, was convicted in 2007 of a number of abuses which took place around the time he worked at the club. He was sentenced to three years in prison in 2007 for the sexual abuse of four young players in the 1970s and 1980s..
One victim, waiving his right to anonymity, told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show that he had felt pressured by senior club officials not to go public with the abuse. Tony Brien said he was abused by Langford numerous times while he was a player at Dunlop Terriers.
Assistant-manager at the time, Dave Richardson, said he did not pressure Brien from following up the abuse and that he went to other senior officials who launched an internal investigation.
Richardson added that after speaking to the parents of two young boys who claimed that they were abused, the parents said they did not want the matter reported to the police. There was and still is no legal requirement for either Richardson or Aston Villa to report such concerns to the authorities, the BBC notes.
Brien said that he had had conversations with Richardson and another senior figure who asked whether he would be able to “put up with the obscenities from the terraces” if he went forward. Richardson said in a statement through a law firm that he could not recall any such conversation, but speaking to the BBC earlier, he had appeared to acknowledge the conversations.
Brien said that while on trips abroad with Langford, he would “have a different boy in his bed with him every single night” and that boys would turn up with “love bites”.
Langford was sacked by Aston Villa in 1988. He was then convicted of a range of offences that took place between 1976 and 1989, a year after he left the club. Langford died in 2012.
More sex abuse victims come forward claiming to have been abused by paedophile athletics coaches
It is now feared paedophiles could have targeted youngsters at athletics clubs in cases similar to the football abuse scandal
PAEDOPHILE athletics coaches are feared to have preyed on youngsters at UK clubs.
At least two women claim to have been targeted.
.
Darrell Bunn is at the centre
It has raised concerns of a sex abuse scandal similar to that which swept football last year.
The latest revelation comes after we told how a woman was suing UK Athletics for failing to protect her from a paedophile coach.
The Sun on Sunday has been told at least one other woman has contacted lawyers over alleged abuse by another coach.
Bunn trained Olympic gold-medallist Jessica Ennis-Hill
A legal source said: “There is at least one other ongoing case — and probably more.
“People are starting to wonder if there will be a lot more people coming forward.”
We revealed in November how a woman claims coach Darrell Bunn, who trained Olympic gold medallists Jessica Ennis-Hill and Denise Lewis, abused her when she was 16.
The coach also trained Olympic gold-medallist Denise Lewis
link
Coach arrested as part of football paedophile scandal had links to England supremo
27 January 2017
A former coach and colleague of one of the men responsible for appointing the England manager was arrested on Friday as part of the paedophile scandal to rock the game.
Kit Carson, full name Michael Sean Carson, was detained by police on suspicion of indecency with children and indecent assault.
The alleged offences relate to the 74-year-old’s time coaching at Peterborough United and Cambridge United, where he worked with Dan Ashworth, the Football Association’s director of elite development, who was instrumental in the appointment of both Sam Allardyce and Gareth Southgate as England manager.
Prince William held private talks at Kensington Palace with Sam Allardyce,
Past controversies — such as the 2006 BBC Panorama documentary in which Allardyce and his son, Craig, were accused by the BBC documentary of taking ‘bungs’, or bribes — will have been overlooked. The Allardyces vehemently denied the claims and have never been charged.
Ashworth, whose relationship with Carson dates back to when the latter brought him to Norwich City as a 12-year-old player, is among several high-profile figures listed as providing testimonials on his former coach and colleague’s website. Others include retired England defender Danny Mills and ex-Wales striker Craig Bellamy.
27th September 2016,
DODGY-dealing Sam Allardyce was axed as England manager.
Big Sam, 61, got the boot after an FA showdown over him being caught in a sting advising on how to “get round” rules on players.
Football Association fail to explain why sacked England boss Sam Allardyce was given a £1m pay-off
The apparent testimonial from Ashworth, who joined the FA from West Bromwich Albion in 2012, reads: “Having worked with you both as a player at Norwich City and as your assistant academy director at Peterborough United and Cambridge United I have no doubts that boys working under you can progress into the world of football. I was delighted that Kit Carson players were signed at West Bromwich Albion.”
Carson’s website, http://www.kitcarsonfootball.com, was on Friday night ‘down for maintenance’.
There is no suggestion Ashworth or anyone named as having provided testimonials for Carson has any knowledge of the alleged offences for which he was arrested, which were said to date from the 1970s to the mid-2000s.
Update:
Jan 27 2017
Ex-Norwich coach ‘Kit’ Carson held in historical football abuse probe
A former football coach and scout has been arrested as part of an investigation into allegations of abuse in the sport.
Michael Sean Carson, known as “Kit”, from Cambridge, has been detained on suspicion of indecency with children and indecent assault.
He has worked for clubs including Peterborough United, Cambridge United and Norwich City.
Cambridgeshire Police said a man in his 70s remains in custody.
Officers are working with the Football Association, local children’s safeguarding boards and councils as part of their county-wide investigations.
PREMIER TALENT ACADEMY LIMITED (06813861)
He worked at Norwich as a youth coach between 1983 and 1993, before moving to Peterborough to run their youth academy until 2001. He then spent five years at Cambridge as their head of talent development.
More recently, Carson has worked at non-league Histon in Cambridgeshire and been a football scout in Finland. According to his LinkedIn page, Carson has also written two coaching manuals.
His website:
This is basically a football web site by an Irish citizen who has spent his whole life in England and his working life in the world of youth development in professional football.
My early school life was based in Kent and Hertfordshire before gaining an economics degree and a Graduate Certificate of Education at the University of Hull in Yorkshire. It was at Hull that I gained my first coaching badges.
After a short teaching career, mainly at a brilliant school in Bedford called Pilgrim School, I formed my own football school which at the time was a first in England. This grew and on the way I met many interesting people who I may well talk about on this site at various times. When I teamed up with Gary Johnson we joined the PGL group of companies and our football schools really took off.
From here Gary went on to a very successful career in professional football coaching and management and I went into professional football as a youth developer and had successful times at Norwich City Football Club, Peterborough United Football Club. Cambridge United Football Club and Histon Football Club.
My skill seems to have been in spotting talent and playing a part in the development of that talent. There are many players and coaches in the professional game who say that I played a major role in their road to success and I am very proud of that.
Throughout my life I have been an ardent supporter and follower of the Republic of Ireland national team and got great satisfaction in locating and developing boys of Irish ancestry born and raised in England.
Two arrests made as police examine 130 reports of child abuse in football
Police Scotland are investigating 130 reports of child sexual abuse in football, with two arrests made.
The sport has been rocked by claims from former players across the UK that they were abused by people in positions of authority and Police Scotland launched a major inquiry into non-recent child abuse in football at the end of last year.
Officers have now received 130 reports but believe there will be more to come.
Barry Bennell: former football coach pleads not guilty to sexual assault charges
Jan 16 2017
All the offences, including assault with intent to commit buggery, are alleged to have happened between 1981 and 1985, when the boy was aged from 11 to 15.
One of the charges relates to a Butlin’s holiday camp and others allegedly happened in Cheshire.
Butlins again
Jan 16 2017
Ex-football coach Barry Bennell denies sex assault charges
Former football coach Barry Bennell has pleaded not guilty to eight charges of sexual assault against a boy under 16.
The former youth coach at Crewe Alexandra denied the eight counts when he appeared at Chester Crown Court.
The charges all relate to allegations of abuse between 1981 and 1986.
Mr Bennell, 63, wearing a blue polo neck shirt and appearing via videolink from HMP Woodhill, in Milton Keynes, answered “not guilty” to all the charges as they were put to him.
The ex-coach, who also worked at Manchester City, Stoke City and junior teams in north-west England and the Midlands, was remanded into custody until 20 March.
Owen Edwards, prosecuting, told the court the alleged victim “preserves his anonymity”.
link
Former Chelsea youth team referee Allan McGrath accused of child abuse
Jan 14 2017
Four separate witnesses have claimed they were abused by Allan McGrath, who worked as a referee for Chelsea’s youth-team games
Chelsea Football Club is today facing new scrutiny over child abuse in the 1970s, after an investigation by The Independent revealed a second man who worked for the club sexually assaulted boys in their youth set-up.
Four separate witnesses have claimed they were abused by Allan McGrath, who worked as a referee for Chelsea’s youth-team games.
Two of the witnesses have described being driven to McGrath’s home when in the Chelsea youth set-up and sexually assaulted there. Both had been promised lifts home from youth matches when they ended up at the house McGrath – who is now dead – shared with his elderly mother in Ashford, Middlesex.
One of the witnesses described McGrath as a friend of Eddie Heath, the former chief scout who ex-Chelsea player Gary Johnson told the club had abused him in the 1970s.
Johnson was subsequently paid £50,000 compensation by Chelsea for the abuse he suffered, in an arrangement which included a non-disclosure clause.
It is unclear whether McGrath was employed full-time by Chelsea. He is remembered by two witnesses for standing in as a referee during summer matches. The Independent has spoken to more than 20 witnesses in Ashford who knew McGrath and who described him as having a number of jobs over a period of 20 years, including as a chauffeur, a school-coach driver and a warden at the HM Prison Feltham Young Offender Institution.
A further two witnesses, one of whom has waived his anonymity to speak to The Independent, described being abused by McGrath, who was then working as coach at Staines United FC, in Middlesex.
Steve Hearn, 58, who lives in Ashford, was eventually spotted by a Chelsea scout and was on the fringes of the squad, as a contemporary of Ray Wilkins, Steve Finnieston and Clive Walker.
But it was while a 12-year-old playing for Staines United under-15s that he encountered McGrath, who was then in his late 20s. “
Another witness, who is now in his late 50s and declined to be named, alleged that McGrath tried to sexually assault him at Ashford Juniors FC in the 1970swhile working there as a referee.Ashford Juniors has since been dissolved and has no links with current clubs in the town.
Staines United has also been dissolved and has no link to Staines Town FC. The Metropolitan Police said it would not discuss individual cases but said its investigation is continuing.
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
2 chairmen of Chelsea FC both die in helicopter crashes and another seems to be a business associate with a Colin Peters.
Vile paedophile Eddie Heath
FA discovers file documenting football paedophile Eddie Heath’s ‘trail of terror’ between clubs
Jan 14 2017
Ex-Charlton Athletic youth player Russell Davy, who has told of his abuse at the hands of Heath, says an FA safeguarding officer told him they have ‘recovered a personal file’
The latest development in the football scandal emerged as ex- Charlton Athletic youth player Russell Davy flew from his home in Lanzarote to give evidence to police.
The ex-goalie, now 50, told the Sunday Mirror last month how he had warned the FA of Heath’s attacks on him more than 30 years ago. Now he reveals his lawyers sent a “letter of claim” to Charlton when the scandal broke, documenting abuse.
But he has heard nothing from the League One club. “I want to know why I was left alone with him for so long so he could abuse me,” said Mr Davy. “They haven’t even contacted me. It’s disgusting.”
He also claims the FA has so far failed to recover a letter he sent to them about the abuse in 1986. He never got a reply and his life spiralled into a nightmare of drink, crime and drugs, at one point fighting a £600-a-week cocaine addition.
Accusations by more than 350 alleged victims are being investigated by police, with 155 suspects identified, involving 148 clubs.
Last night a Charlton spokesman said the club had “launched an internal investigation” into Mr Davy’s allegations, adding: “The club has contacted police.”
Millionaire vice-president of Chelsea, Phillip Carter, died in a helicopter crash (the twin-engined Squirrel, which was previously owned by North Wales Police) on his way back from watching the team’s Champions League semi-final defeat.
It is understood his teenage son was also on board and died at the scene along with the aircraft’s pilot Stephen Holdich, 49, and Jonathan Waller, a friend of Mr Carter’s.
Mr Carter, a lifelong Chelsea fan, was a close friend of Matthew Harding, the club’s former vice-chairman and major benefactor, who also died in a helicopter crash 11 years ago in similar circumstances. Both Mr Carter and Mr Harding were travelling in twin-engined Squirrel helicopters
Phillip Carter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Carter_%28businessman%29 …
Matthew Hardinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Harding …
Vicount Ian Kerr CGC @IanKerr
Matthew Harding made a large donation to the NSPCC for boys abused in care shortly before his death.
Sir Nick Scheele with Eric Dymock and Lord Montagu of Beaulieu
Nick Scheele, who was chairman of Jaguar at the time, Duncan Sutherland, the former city council’s development director, and PR guru John Clarke got together to raise funds for a new NSPCC centre in Coventry.
The committee which kickstarted the campaign included more than 20 of the leading figures in the city at the time time including MPs, trade unionists, business and industrial leaders.
Nick Scheele stressed at the inaugural meeting in the Jaguar Browns Lane board-room that the objective of the NSPCC Coventry Kids Appeal was to raise over #400,000 to fund an NSPCC centre in Whitefriars Street, on land opposite the existing cramped NSPCC offices situated above a wine bar – and the aim was to do it in just three years.
The appeal committee not only met that target but topped it thanks to a generous #50,000 cheque from former Chelsea FC vice-chairman Matthew Harding, just months before his premature death in a helicopter crash on the way back from a soccer match in Lancashire.
The NSPCC centre was built on time and opened by Princess Margaret, the NSPCC president, in 1996
Jill Dando had been probing the death of Chelsea millionaire Matthew Harding
This was shortly before the death of Princess Diana, who also knew about the abuse-ring.
Harding funded New Labour and was close to Blair and Mandelson.
He may have stumbled across the paedophile network and it’s links to Mossad and wanted out.
Shortly before his death he made a large donation to the NSPCC for boys abused in care.
Peter Mandelson is the president of the NSPCC
Jill Dando started her own investigation into Matthew Harding’s mysterious death.
A few months later, she was dead too.
The inclusion of Lord Mandelson and an office address for Tony Blair has raised questions about the extent of his relationship with the Labour government.
By a strange coincidence Esther Rantzen is a trustee of the NSPCC.
Esther Rantzen: My shock over my MP lover’s links to Elm House paedophile ring
The Guardian
Report: Bill Clinton Wasn’t Only One to Go to ‘Sex Slave Island,’ Hillary Went with Him–‘Six Times’
The source for this claim is Erik Prince, the founder of the security firm Blackwater (yes, that one.) In an exclusive interview at Breitbart News, Prince first states that the NYPD is “ready to make arrests in Weiner case.”
Prince pivots from the Weiner laptop investigation to claiming that Hillary Clinton accompanied Bill Clinton and billionaire convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein to “sex island” (aka “sex slave island”).
“They found State Department emails. They found a lot of other really damning criminal information, including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton went there more than 20 times. Hillary Clinton went there at least six times.”
Mr. Clinton flew on the billionaire’s convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous jet more than a dozen times — sometimes with a woman whom federal prosecutors suspect of procuring underage sex victims for Mr. Epstein. Fox News reported Friday that records show Mr. Clinton declined Secret Service protection on at least five flights.
The network’s investigation reveals Mr. Clinton flew on the Boeing 727 “Lolita Express” 26 times, more than doubling the previously reported 11 trips.
“Bill Clinton … associated with a man like Jeffrey Epstein, who everyone in New York, certainly within his inner circles, knew was a pedophile.
Why would a former president associate with a man like that?” said Conchita Sarnoff of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Alliance to Rescue Victims of Trafficking, Fox reported. Ms. Sarnoff also authored a book on Mr. Epstein titled “TrafficKing.”
Mr. Epstein was arrested in 2005 and signed a plea agreement in 2007 with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, accepting a single charge of soliciting prostitution. He agreed to a 30-month sentence, registered as a “Tier 1” sex offender with the U.S. Virgin Islands and paid dozens of young girls
Fresh clue in Jill Dando murder case arises
MURDERED Crimewatch host Jill Dando had been probing the death of Chelsea millionaire Matthew Harding, a former colleague has claimed.
Harding, deputy chairman of the football club, was one of five people killed in a mystery helicopter crash in October 1996.
He died just months after voicing concerns about corruption in football.
Jill was later gunned down on her doorstep in Fulham, south-west London, in April 1999.
From Dando obituary 1999
Jill Dando wrote to Jimmy Savile when he was doing the Jim’ll Fix It show.
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
Chelsea FC was also involved in silencing abuse victims with payouts:
Gary Johnson says Chelsea paid him £50,000 for silence about abuse
Johnson says he was sexually abused in the 1970s after being groomed from the age of 13 by club’s then chief scout Eddie Heath, who has since died
‘Only after Matthew died did I find he had a second mistress and another love child’
THE WIFE OF TRAGIC CHELSEA TYCOON REVEALS HOW HIS DEATH IN A HELICOPTER CRASH WAS JUST THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF TERRIBLE SHOCKS SHE FACED
Matthew started as teaboy in an insurance office and made his fortune in the reinsurance markets. He also had a pounds 50 million stake in Chelsea Football Club, where he was vice-chairman.
When he was killed in a helicopter crash in October, 1996 he was worth more than pounds 125million and was the 89th wealthiest man in Britain. He and Ruth owned a large estate in Sussex with a tennis court, swimming pool and wonderful views over the South Downs.
Ruth lived there all the time but Matthew came home only at weekends. During the week he lived in London with his Ecuadorian mistress Vicky Jaramillo and their daughter Ella, now five. After his death, it was discovered that his PA had also had his baby.
“There are two illegitimate children,” says Ruth. “So it’s a complicated situation. Only after he died did I know about the second child. There’s just a few months between them. Incredible, isn’t it?”
Matthew Harding’s great friend, Tory MP Francis Maude, gave the funeral address
Francis Maude was PPS to noted pederast Sir Peter Morrison. Maude then became an assistant government whip (1985–87)
Following the death of Jill Dando, a new research centre in her name was formed:
” The UCL Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science is the first Institute in the world devoted to Crime Science. Research is concentrated on new ways to cut crime and increase security ” .
By a strange twist, the Board of the Institute is run by none other than Nick Ross and Professor Anthony Finkelstein.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/jdi/people/tabbed-box/board
Anthony Finkelstein is Daniel Finkelstein’s brother.
https://thecolemanexperience.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/mazel-tov-danny-finkelstein/
The Tory research company ‘Policy Exchange Ltd’ is also registered at:
11-15 Acre House
William Road
London
United Kingdom
NW1 3ER
https://companycheck.co.uk/company/04297905/POLICY-EXCHANGE-LIMITED/companies-house-data
Its directors include Danny Finkelstein, Michael Gove, Harvey Proctor supporter –Iain Dale and Francis Maude.
Big fan: David Mellor is a well known as a huge Chelsea fan, pictured in the director’s box with former chairman Ken Bates, far left
There was no Home Office cover-up over Geoffrey Dickens’ dossier
Leon Brittan ‘attended paedophile parties in notorious brothel’
FORMER Home Secretary Leon Brittan was one of a number of high-profile people who attended paedophile parties in a notorious brothel, it was claimed last night.
Brittan is said to have abused children at Elm Guest House, a boarding house in Barnes, west London, which was run as a brothel in the 1970s and 1980s, according to the Daily Star Sunday.
Among the shocking accusations are claims that one of Brittan’s victims was a 10-year-old primary school boy.
Other details that were reported include how a social worker described in testimony details seeing photos, taken in the 1970s, of Brittan dressed in kinky outfits with naked boys sitting on his lap.
Over the years, Brittan had been plagued with rumours surrounding his private life and supposed failure to act over an alleged cover-up of a missing dossier containing allegations of Establishment sex abuse.
After her husband’s death, Ruth was asked to become patron at Chelsea Football Club. This gave her an enormous amount of pleasure but Matthew and the club’s chairman, Ken Bates, had had many vicious disagreements. In what seemed like an act of spite, Ken Bates told Ruth that he no longer wanted her as patron.
“It’s very sad,” she says. “He didn’t give any reason.” Ruth still goes to games at Chelsea but she remains angry with coach Graham Rix, who was convicted of having unlawful sex with an under-age girl. He has served his jail sentence and has now been reinstated.
“He’s not a close friend of mine but his wife and four children are,” she says. “They are now separated and my heart goes out to the children because they’ve got to live with what their father’s done. When this dreadful situation happened at Chelsea, I was the only one who said, ‘Graham Rix is guilty’. Now society has turned on the girl and said, ‘It was her fault, she shouldn’t have worn short skirts, she shouldn’t be drinking, shouldn’t be smoking’.
“I think Graham does a great job at football, but the sadness is that he’s probably wrecked that girl’s life.”
Ruth is now involved in the NSPCC’s campaign to raise money for the millennium in aid of the most desperate children in Britain. “Until I met Richard, I knew nothing about sexually abused children. A vast number of people have been abused as a child but because people don’t talk about it, it festers away inside them.”
The widow of Chelsea vice-chairman Matthew Harding, who was killed in a helicopter crash in 1996, has lost her second husband to cancer.
Ruth Harding, reported to be Britain’s fourth richest woman, married Richard Gist at their Ditchling mansion in July 1999.
Arsenal fan Mr Gist, 39, a former area manager for child protection group the NSPCC, died on Saturday shortly before the FA Cup Final.
He began with the NSPCC as a child protection officer working in Coventry before rising to the post of area children’s services manager.
Richard Gist memorial service:
The Bishop of Warwick, the Rt Rev Anthony Priddis will be in attendance, as will Baptist minister and London evangelist Steve Chalk.
Mr Gist was a manager at Coventry NSPCC, in Whitefriars Street in the city centre, before becoming an area manager for the child protection charity.
He was instrumental in helping the charity move to bigger offices across the road – Boole House – which was opened by Princess Margaret in 1996.
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
Ken Bates was embroiled in a bitter feud with Harding who died under suspicious circumstances in a helicopter crash:
IN 1987 CHELSEA FOOTBALL CLUB OWNED BY KEN BATES ASKED COLIN PETERS BUSINESS TO DEAL WITH HIS VAT AFFAIRS who in 1989 WAS CONVICTED ON CSA
Martin Walkerdine @mwalkerdine
LAING & PETERS NAPLES ENCOUNTER WITH 2 ITALIAN BOYS AGED 10 YEARS OLD ON HIRED BOAT WHILE WORKING AT FOREIGN OFFICE
Colin John Meredith Peters (Inverness) and Alastair David Laing (Woking, Surrey)
Disgusting. I suppose Mr Vatattack, Colin Peters, is a completely rehabilitated individual now is he? #nonce
Martin Walkerdine @mwalkerdine
Peters were not charged on this offence as he had diplomatic immunity and was expelled with Laing
Colin Peters was caught red-handed in the Bay of Naples abusing boys. He was let off and allowed to continue. Why?
Will @IICSA_media have the balls to tackle the Colin Peters case or will it lay off out of deference to royal links. That is the big Q!
How did Colin Peters go on to get government work after being apprehended as part of Op Hedgerow?
Perhaps @DLidington can explain why a vile paedophile like Colin Peters was allowed to continue after his first conviction?
@DLidington David, aren’t you going to aswer my question on whether you passed Colin Peters case to @IICA as promised to journalist?
Home of Colin Peters, 26 Chepstow Road, London W2
4 Nov 1988
Cassandra Cogno @CassandraCogno
Colin Peters has already been acknowledged as Elm Guest House visitor:
While the Metropolitan Police told The Independent that the boys’ disappearances were not being re-investigated, the predatory nature of some of those who stayed at the Elm Guest House will raise concerns that they could have been targeted.
Anthony Milsom, a paedophile from Hull, who is alleged to have stayed at the property, later moved to Newtown, Powys, where he was convicted of a string of sex offences dating back to the 1990s, including 21 counts of making indecent photographs of children and five counts of indecent assault on a girl when she was aged between 4 and eight. He was jailed indefinitely at Mold Crown Court in March 2011, but six months later appeal court judges reduced his sentence to three-and-a-half years. Another alleged visitor was Colin Peters, a Foreign Office barrister, who was jailed in 1989 for being part of a network which molested hundreds of boys. Reports at the time said the ring “was used by highly placed civil servants and well-known public officials”.
The most infamous alleged visitor to Elm Guest House was Warwick Spinks, a violent paedophile who in 1995 was jailed for a series of sexual offences on boys, including buggery, taking a child without lawful authority and taking indecent images of children. Lewes Crown Court heard that he had he drugged a 14-year-old boy and “sold him” to a gay brothel in Amsterdam
According to documents kept by a former children’s worker, visitors to the property included the Soviet spy Sir Anthony Blunt and the late Liberal MP Cyril Smith, who is now thought by Manchester police to have assaulted teenage boys.
Another was Sir Peter Hayman, Britain’s former High Commissioner in Canada.
Brittan has ‘no recollection’ of dossier
A senior minister in Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet handed a dossier containing allegations of paedophilia in Buckingham Palace and the diplomatic and civil services says he cannot remember receiving the file.
In November 1983 Sir Leon Brittan, the Home Secretary, was given the dossier by the late Geoffrey Dickens, as part of his campaign against the Paedophile Information Exchange.
Asked by The Independent this week what the dossier alleged and what action, if any, he took, Sir Leon, a QC and later European Commissioner, replied by email: “I have no recollection of these matters. Sorry!”
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
An old website that Spinks used.
July 2013
‘Most violent’ paedo freed by loophole …and back ogling teens
A VIOLENT child sex predator recaptured following an international manhunt quaffs champagne on a luxury boat — after he was freed by a loophole.
Evil Warwick Spinks, dubbed the Pied Piper of Paedophiles, was extradited from the Czech Republic in November after 15 years on the run.
He should have then served the last 18 months of his five-year jail term. But when he was caged back in 1995 the law only allowed officials to make offenders serve part of a sentence before automatically freeing them.
That loophole was closed for absconders last year but it cannot be enforced retrospectively.
So officials had to free Spinks FOUR MONTHS after his recapture.
The pot-bellied paedo, who now calls himself property tycoon Willem van Wijk, celebrated his freedom and 49th birthday with a bash for 14 pals, including toyboy Vladimir, 34.
The Sun watched as he:
SIPPED champagne with pals at a luxury floating restaurant.
UNWRAPPED creepy presents including an edible thong.
WRITHED with male go-go dancers, saying: “You’re only as young as the boy you’re feeling.”
CAVORTED starkers in a glass-sided plunge pool with a Slovak lad in front of other perverts.
A source said: “Spinks should be behind bars. Many people in Prague were shocked to see him back so soon acting as if nothing had happened. He is cocking a snook at British justice.”
Spinks was first identified as a dangerous child abuser in 1992. He divided his time between England and Amsterdam, introducing sex tourists to young boys.
He told one undercover cop he could arrange sex with boys in Germany, Prague and Poland for as little as 10p. He was also secretly taped offering to supply a “snuff” video in which a boy, ten, was killed for kicks.
In 1995 he was jailed for seven years at Lewes Crown Court, East Sussex, for several offences against underage boys.
His sentence was cut to five years on appeal but when let out on licence in 1997 he fled the UK, violating his probation conditions.
https://theukdatabase.com/2012/07/04/warwick-spinks-greenwich/
Hopefully @IICSA will be looking at ‘diplomatic immunity’ (Leon Brittan, Colin Peters et al).
Presumably @offsidetrust are aware of Delaney and his associates.
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
Colin Peters also has very close links to Chelsea FC.
One client ment’d on his Vatattack website is Grange Farm.
Grange Farm, a client of Colin Peters, is owned by Ken Bates:
http://www.thechels.info/wiki/Grange_Farm …
KEN BATES BUSINESS WAS GRANGE FARM http://thechels.info/wiki/Grange_Farm …COLIN PETERS BUSINESS DEALINGS >
Grange Farm – a case on the apportionment of input tax deductible by the owner of a premier division football club
http://vatattack.co.uk/colin.htm
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
CLARE MAINPRICE a litigation partner at VAT specialist Mainprice & Co, has just joined accountancy firm Baker Tilly. And before you fall asleep, I should add that Ms Mainprice is a founder member of the Groucho Club.
Ms Mainprice also harbours a dark family secret. Her father Hugh was one of the triumvirate which drew up the UK’s VAT legislation in the early Seventies, making her a second-generation VAT supremo.
Groucho Club and Child Sexual Abuse
Crafty Muvva @craftymuvva
Among the cases he has conducted in the VAT tribunal have been:
- Grunwick Processing Laboratories Ltd – a decision on the burden of proof and on the time limits for assessments
- Trafalgar Tours Ltd – a case on the value of supply
Former travel executive Tollman guilty of tax evasion
- Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers – a case on whether the institute was a “professional association” and therefore making exempt supplies
- Institute of Chartered Foresters – a case on simple or multiple supplies
- Institute of Biomedical Science – a partial exemption decision
- Grange Farm – a case on the apportionment of input tax deductible by the owner of a premier division football club
- Kingscrest Residential Care Homes – whether a care home operated on a for profit basis was entitled to standard rate its supplies (a subsequent decision, Kingscrest No. 2, was referred to the European Court of Justice)
- Bissell Homecare (Overseas) Inc – a decision on whether the then three year cap on repayments by Customs was applicable
He set up as a sole practitioner advising on VAT in 2004.
via discovery77
COLIN PETERS
“Documents 128-30 Names of Known and
Suspected Abusers of Children”
one “Colin Peters QC Twickenham Lawyer”
http://vatattack.co.uk/colin.htm
Timeline
? – obtains an honours degree in Modern History at Oxford University
? – works as Secretary General of the British Chamber of Commerce in Casablance.
1974 – Returns allegedly to Uk from Casablance to study law and later specialises
in indirect tax.
1977 -Colin Peters alleges he begins specialising in the law and practice of VAT.
1979 – 1986 he works in Customs’ Solicitor’s Office as a Senior Legal Assistant in their
VAT tribunal division, conducting more than 100 appeals in the tribunal.
1986/7 – Colin Peters is already by now, according to the documents, remarkably, a QC.
1986 – Colin Peters allegedly leaves the Solicitor’s Office of Customs and Excise,
now HM Revenue & Customs, joins private practice Hugh Mainprice as a partner in Mainprice
and Co, a firm dealing exclusively with VAT. Begins advising on VAT.
http://vatattack.co.uk/
1987, December – Colin Peters, Alan Delaney, Ernest Whittington, Victor Burnett remanded. Also charged with the 4 are John Williams, a builder, Patrick Joseph Morris (and his son, 18, dont know if a victim),
Bryan Peter Howard – Edmunds of Harlesden. 5 yrs abuse going back to 1982. 140 boys interviewed.
Also charged was Kenneth Martin (64, market trader). Another man from Hastings *un-named-64 yr old clerk?)
also charged for committing offences with Martin. So 7 men in total charged. 22 men originally arrested.
Victims aged 10-15.
1988- (10th?) November – Colin peters and co trial commences. A 22 year old man was the first ever adult victim of sex abuse to be allowed to give evidence on video. Women’s groups outraged that the first to be allowed is male. Peters, Burnett, Whittington and Delaney in the dock, plus the two Norris half brothers (both aged 18). Charges previously dropped against the father of the boys Patrick Joseph Norris.
So charges dropped for the father and added for the other son. The two Norris boys were found in bed at Colin Peters home when police went to arrest Peters.
Judge Henry Pownall and DCI in charge Roger Gaspar.
1989, February 3rd-Colin Peters and co sentenced at Old Bailey.
The two 18 year olds presumably were acquitted or case dropped against them during the trial.
2004 – Colin Peters allegedly starts VAT consultancy called VATATTACK.
‘Ephemera’ and terrible abuse:-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk…l-8518078.html
He has contributed articles to Taxation and contributed case summaries to CCH.
One of the boys he allegedly abused was Peter Hatton-Bornshin, a Grafton Close
care-home resident, who later killed himself.
Another said: “He was a regular and was named by two, possibly three, boys as a
man who abused them. Peters used camera equipment and hired a conference room at
the guesthouse. There was only one reason to do that and that was to make porn
films of the boys. There was a sauna attached to the room, which was also used.
From docs;
About the guest house:-
“Among those using it was Louis Minster, Director of Social Services, Richmond, Colin Peters QC, Donald Naismith, Director of Education Wandsworth & number of police. Boys supplied by Neil Keir OIC (Officer in Charge) Grafton Lodge Childrens Home.” Note dated 17/7/89
“Colin Peters QC one of Haddons clients for porn & sex, knows of our interest – do not know how.
Alerting his friends to ‘take care of us’. Warned to be very careful of this guy.”
Cassandra Cogno @CassandraCogno
Colin Peters has already been acknowledged as Elm Guest House visitor:
T.M.W. @ZEPHYoRUS
Paedophile ring leader, Colin Peters, linked to Barnes scandal
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
The Foreign Office was instrumental in covering up the crimes of Alistair Laing and Colin Peters in the Bay of Naples
Colin Peters, caught in Bay of Naples ferrying lads to British elite paedophiles on the islands.
When Peters and Laing were arrested in the Bay of Naples, Jenny Lee who was in the vicinity, went there to negotiate bail.
Jenny Lee, Minister of the Arts, who was married to Aneurin Bevan described as a ‘lifelong champion of social justice’.
So why did a woman of social integrity side with a pair of vile paedophiles peddling boys to to the ‘great and good’?
via sceptic peg
GEORGE BARSBY & OTHER
GRAFTON CLOSE NEIGHBOURS
Following lengthy research I suspect I may have identified someone who is mentioned within the Elm Guest House paperwork. The person concerned was mentioned in connection with Neil Keir and David Hamilton – Grant and this ‘chart’ of how the different depraved cogs joined together to make one nasty machine also makes mention of him at the top. The person in question is named ‘Barsby’ (incorrectly transcribed in this picture).
David Hamilton-Grant: Video Nasties:
Moral Panic, Censorship, and Videotape
Named as David Hamilton-Grant in the documentary
at 41:11
Named as David Grant in the documentary
at 42:55
Source:
Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship, and Videotape.
PIE paedophile, member of the establishment, Peter Righton received porn videos from Holland
George Barsby
I believe that Barsby was, in fact, ‘Uncle George’ George Barsby – a local man who lived within a stone’s throw of Grafton Close children’s home. Barsby was a 56 year old supermarket manager, who also referred to himself as a ‘voluntary social worker’ when he made numerous appearances at Richmond Magistrates Court on 16 charges of child sexual abuse in 1978 (which tallies with the note at the top of the graph).
After 11 appearances at Richmond, his trial was eventually transferred to the Old Bailey and on 23 March 1979 he was sentenced to five years imprisonment. Interestingly, one of the allegations against him included making pornographic photographs of children (which also tallies with the note at the top of the graph). He was referred to as a counsellor who targeted single mothers and their children. His solicitor argued that Barsby had previous good character but following his social work, he had “fallen for tempation”. He was also found guilty of theft from his employers, Sainsburys, and of false stocktaking figures.
1980 ‘Amsterdam Connection’
A year later, a trial took place at Kingston Crown Court which was described as the ‘Amsterdam Connection’ in which a man named Alfred Hart from Twickenham was found guilty of dealing in child abuse images along with his partner, Michael Dennison from Blackwater, Camberley. Hart was described as “one of the ringleaders” which leads me to believe this was a much bigger case involving more than just the two who appeared in court.
Alan Delaney & the Colin Peters Paedophile Ring
Then 8 years later Operation Hedgerow reaches it’s conclusion and the Colin Peters paedophile ring (including Alan Delaney) appears in court charged with child sexual abuse offences.
As well as procuring boys from the West End of London, Delaney had also lured boys through his Twickenham cleaning business and running a local youth football team.
Delaney lived in Hounslow – on the Twickenham borders – and the reason I have included these trials in one post is down to the proximity of the abusers in relations to Grafton Close childrens’ home.
Here are the addresses mapped so you can see the close proximity of these repugnant individuals.
There were more depraved individuals living within the vicinity at that time and I will add them in due course.
https://scepticpeg.wordpress.com/2017/03/02/george-barsby-other-grafton-close-neighbours/
What is new is the location concerning these two people as this was not revealed to me when I made FOI request to Northampton Crown Court PREVIOUSLY but was mentioned during a telephone call today by a source who I will not name yet
https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/0FE31538-2121-8495-33A5-86073BE95DE1/thought/2782
Troy @snowfaked
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/9280332/george_barsby/ …
Barsby. 1973.
@mwalkerdine https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/259732188/ …
Keith Joseph committing a boy with “bizarre sexual conduct” 1973 https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/260621567/ …
Here’s article about Belfast Brian McDermott unsolved murder though. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/259889480/ …
The Scouts HQ is there and links to Cliff Richard…
Anthony McSweeney was in charge of Gilwell park at that time and Kitty would go camping there every year with a youth club from Chingford
GLASGOW HERALD 4 October 1967: Colin Peters and Alastair Laing
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Xn9AAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wKMMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3387%2C412491 …
Colin Peters and Operation Hedgerow Timeline and Links
As there are several documents coming to light on Colin Peters, and Sceptic Peg has just published a post on Peters, I am releasing this work in progress that I have not worked on for several months, so that other researchers may make use of it.
It was intended for another use so the Oxendon House parts may not be relevant
I have not archived any btw
Timeline
1980 Boy from Scotland to Piccadilly [44] Colin Peters
1982-87 child abuse offences by Peters et al [44]
1987 Apr Telephone Engineer found Delaney child sexual abuse [24] [45]
1987 Dec 4 Glasgow Herald [22] Father and Son on child sex charges
1987 Dec 4 The Guardian [42] Remand for 7 child abuse accused – til next week
1987 Dec 10 Willesden & Brent Chronicle [43] Stephen Di Biasio 7 men charged in sex scandal
1988 Nov 12 The Times [24] Mark Ellis 6 men recruited children for big sexual abuse ring
1988 Nov 12 The Guardian [44] Child sex ring taught victims abuse was natural, court told – Old Bailey, Offences from 1982 -87 children as young as 10
1988 Nov 12 The Times [24] Mark Ellis 6 men recruited children for big sexual abuse ring Colin Peters Piccadilly link
1989 Feb 3 The Times [46] Mark Ellis. Evil trade of child sex ring corrupted 150 boys Sentenced today
1989 Feb 3 Guardian [47] Four facing sentence on child abuse charges
1989 Feb 3 Glasgow Herald [48] Four men found guilty in rent boy conspiracy
1989 Feb 3 Telegraph [*]
1989 Feb 4 Daily Express [49] John Twomey Four faces of evil
1989 Feb 4 Guardian [50] Horrifying child sex ring jailed for male prostitution
1989 Feb 4 Glasgow Herald [51] 34 years for 4 men in appalling child sex ring
1989 Feb 17 EIR Mark Burdman [52] copy in links for now
1994 Aug 1 Local Government Chronicle [1] Unions happy with Oxendon House Inquiry
1994 Sept 6 Writs fly in wake of child abuse report [2]
1994 Nov 29 Guardian [41] Nick Davies Red Light for Blue Squad
2013 Mar 3 Sun [53] via Greenlight Colin Peters text at end
2013 Mar 3 Independent [20] Paedophile ring leader, Colin Peters, linked to Barnes scandal
2013 Mar 3 Independent [55] Police failings out dozens of children at risk from notorious paedophile ring
2013 May 7 Exaro [21] David Pallister Elm Guest House linked to biggest child sex racket
2013 Sept 4 Spotlight on Abuse [23] How British covered up paedophile network
2014 Jan 8 Needleblog [4o] Operation Hedgerow
2014 Feb 12 Needleblog [56] Email From Colin Peters– Colin Peters denies Elm Guest
Oxendon House
[1] 1994 Aug 1 Local Government Chronicle Unions happy with Oxendon House Inquiry http://www.lgcplus.com/unison-happy-with-oxendon-house-inquiry/1631836.article
[2] 1994 Sept 6 Writs fly in wake of child abuse report http://www.lgcplus.com/writs-fly-in-bedfordshire-in-wake-of-home-inquiry-report/1610971.article
[3] National Archives http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11133827
[4] Report FOI
Peters
[20] 2013 Mar 3 Sunday Independent Paedophile ring leader, Colin Peters, linked to Barnes scandal http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/paedophile-ring-leader-colin-peters-linked-to-barnes-scandal-8518078.html P, Colin Peters and EGH
[21] 2013 May 7 Exaro David Pallister Elm Guest House linked to biggest child sex racket http://www.exaronews.com/articles/4956/elm-guest-house-linked-to-britain-s-biggest-child-sex-racket
[22] 1987 Dec 4 Glasgow Herald Father and Son on child sex charges – 7 men including peters appeared at Willesden Mag court https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3zhAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LlkMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4597,1196211&hl=en
[23] 2013 Sept 4 Murun How British covered up paedophile network http://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/how-the-british-establishment-covered-up-a-paedophile-network/
[24] 1988 Nov 12 The Times Mark Ellis 6 men recruited children for big sexual abuse ring Colin Peters Piccadilly link http://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/six-men-recruited-children-for-big-sexual-abuse-ring-12-11-88/
[25] 2013 May 3 Abundant Hope Paedophile ring leader, Colin Peters, linked to Barnes scandal http://abundanthope.net/pages/Political_Information_43/Paedophile-ring-leader-Colin-Peters-linked-to-Barnes-scandal_printer.shtml
Operation Hedgerow
[4o] 2014 Jan 8 Needleblog Operation Hedgerow http://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/operation-hedgerow-1987-89/
[41] 1994 Nov 29 Guardian Nick Davies Red Light for Blue Squad http://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/red-light-for-blue-squad-29-11-94/ – pornography and major
[42] 1987 Dec 4 The Guardian, Remand for 7 child abuse accused – til next week http://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/remand-for-seven-child-abuse-accused-4-12-87/
[43] 1987 Dec 10 Willesden & Brent Chronicle, Stephen Di Biasio 7 men charged in sex scandal http://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2013/07/09/seven-men-charged-in-child-sex-scandal-10-12-87/
[44] 1988 Nov 12 The Guardian, Child sex ring taught victims abuse was natural, court told https://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/child-sex-ring-taught-victims-abuse-was-natural-court-told-12-11-88/ – Old Bailey, Offences from 1982 -87 children as young as 10
[46] 1989 Feb 3 The Times, Mark Ellis. Evil trade of child sex ring corrupted 150 boys Sentenced today http://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/evil-trade-of-child-sex-ring-corrupted-150-boys-3-2-89/ Link to Picca, Address
[47] 1989 Feb 3 Guardian Four facing sentence on child abuse charges http://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/four-facing-sentence-on-child-sex-ring-charges-3-2-89/ Victims from 3 schools 2 in west country, 1 in se Peters address and charges
[48] 1989 Feb 3 Glasgow Herald Four men found guilty in rent boy conspiracy https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/0FE31538-2121-8495-33A5-86073BE95DE1/thought/1#-2899
1989 Feb 3 Telegraph [*]
[49] 1989 Feb 4 Daily Express John Twomey Four faces of evil http://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/the-four-faces-of-evil-4-2-89/ Judge Henry Pownall sentenced Peters to 8 years for buggers, conspiracy to commit buggery and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice . victims in special boarding schools for educationally subnormal. Peters 43 Chepstow Rd, Bayswater . House of lords offficla and link to elm guest house
[50] 1989 Feb 4 Guardian Horrifying child sex ring jailed for male prostitution http://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/horrifying-child-sex-ring-jailed-for-male-prostitution-4-2-89/ 13 week trial Detectives fear continuing conspiracy of people in high places Peters burnett, delaney, whittington
[51] 1989 Feb 4 Glasgow Herald 34 years for 4 men in appalling child sex ring https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/0FE31538-2121-8495-33A5-86073BE95DE1/thought/1#-2900
[52] 1989 Feb 17 EIR Mark Burdman Pedophiles arrested more powerful than mafia. https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/0FE31538-2121-8495-33A5-86073BE95DE1/thought/918#-2901 The most prominent figure in the ring, Colin Peters, was trained at Oxford, and was formerly a senior adviser in the British Foreign Office. Following his Foreign Office work, he prosecuted cases for the British Customs and Excise.
Investigators working on the case had interrogated at least one senior member of the House of Lords , one vicar in West London, and officials in Whitehall , “but the police did not have sufficient evidence or manpower to pursue their suspicions ,” the Telegraph reported. * Colin Peters was told: “On your own admission, you found boys to satisfy your lust. You were prepared to encourage them to drugs or to lace their drinks and you have made matters worse by trying to get witnesses not to attend court. You did that to save your own skin. That was disgraceful. You of all people should have known that. ”
‘A permanent conspiracy’ British deputy police superintendent John Lewis , who oversaw the investigations, is calling on Scotland Yard to create a special squad to deal with pedophile rings. Lewis declared Feb. 2 that “these people are as organized and sophisticated as any other criminals, and are involved in a permanent conspiracy which is renewed daily as they hunt for new boys. They need to be targeted like bank robbers. It is important that we should not feel complacent. Positive policing should be continued.”
British police investigators were reportedly angered by the light sentence meted out to Peters In an editorial entitled, “Is This Justice?” the Express Feb. 4 called the sentences “woefully inadequate . . . weighed against the enormity of their crimes and the emotional and physical damage they did to their victims , some of whom were only nine years old. ”
[55] 2013 Mar 3 Independent Police failings out dozens of children at risk from notorious paedophile ring http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-failings-put-dozens-of-children-at-risk-from-notorious-paedophile-ring-8518522.html elm Guest house and links to Peters Another alleged visitor was Colin Peters, a Foreign Office barrister, who was jailed in 1989 for being part of a network which molested hundreds of boys. Reports at the time said the ring “was used by highly placed civil servants and well-known public officials”.
[56] 2014 Feb 12 Needleblog Email From Colin Peters https://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/email-from-colin-peters/
[57] http://vatattack.co.uk/colin.htm
[58] https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/report_of_the_public_inquiry_int
[59] http://web.archive.org/web/20070213024342/http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23383308-details/A+foster+mother+pays+tribute+to+the+Archbishop+of+Canterbury%2527s+compassion/article.do
[60] http://www.doceo.co.uk/reflection/2009/05/on-training-child-abusers.htm
[61] http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1993/nov/29/oxendon-house
[62] http://www.carehome.co.uk/carehome.cfm/searchazref/10003020OXEA
[63] https://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/newcastle-city-council-brian-roycroft-and-north-wales-care-homes/
[64] https://www.nspcc.org.uk/globalassets/documents/research-reports/towards-safer-organisations-2009-report.pdf
[65] https://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2013/11/10/paedophilia-in-academia-len-davis-brunel-university/ sex and social worker today peter righton
https://cathyfox.wordpress.com/2017/03/02/colin-peters-and-operation-hedgerow-working-document/
Martin Walkerdine @mwalkerdine
reply to FOI
Although the file is currently closed to the public, you may wish to be aware that the full contents of the file have been made available, unredacted, to the police. The staff working
for the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA, or the “Goddard Inquiry”) have also been informed of the file and told that they too can have access to it without any redactions as soon as they request it.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/339005/response/834747/attach/html/3/FOI%20Request%200572%2016%20reply%20060716.pdf.html
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
When confronted by a hack, Laing was very open about the Naples incident all those years ago and was still unaware of any wrong-doing
An Establishment figure speaking for Laing said he ‘should have followed Auden’s advice on the boat and simply bent lower.
Both paedophiles Richard Alston and Peter Righton are also thanked in the preface to Donald Mitchell’s book Britten and Auden in the Thirties: The Year 1936: The T.S. Eliot Memorial Lectures delivered in the University of Kent at Canterbury in November 1979 (London: Faber, 1981):
Paedophile Richard Alston (brother of diplomat Robert Alston)
I am much indebted to Richard Alston without whose dedicated editorial assistance I should have found it difficult to see this revised edition through the press. [….] and to Peter Righton for correcting proofs.
Laing retired in 2013 as Curator of Pictures at National Trust for 27 years. He studied History at Oxford under ANTHONY BLUNT!
(Elm Guest House – the list of alleged attendees at the parties. One source suggested that Anthony Blunt, former keeper of the Queen’s pictures and an exposed Soviet mole, used to go the parties)
Ben was for the best part of forty years my nearest and dearest,’ said Peter Pears, right, of Benjamin Britten.
Peter Righton’s Diaries: Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears and Michael Davidson
The important information is the following: in Righton’s diaries, he frequently referred to Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears and Michael Davidson as ‘fellow boy-lovers’, and also spoke of how important to him (Righton) were their get-togethers at Snape Maltings. Both Richard Alston and Peter Righton is also thanked in the preface to Donald Mitchell’s book Britten and Auden in the Thirties: The Year 1936: The T.S. Eliot Memorial Lectures delivered in the University of Kent at Canterbury in November 1979 (London: Faber, 1981):
On June 2, 1967, Her Majesty opened the new concert hall at Snape Maltings, the brainchild of Suffolk composer Benjamin Britten, who’d felt a larger venue was needed for the Aldeburgh Festival of the Arts. The festival leased and converted one of the main buildings. Almost exactly two years later, after the opening night of the 22nd Aldeburgh Festival, fire ripped through the concert hall.
It was rebuilt in time for the 1970 festival, and the Queen returned to Snape to perform another opening ceremony.
The re-opening of Snape Maltings concert hall in June, 1970, following a fire and rebuilding. The Queen talks to Benjamin Britten while Prince Philip chats to Peter Pears
Colin Peters, at the heart of a paedophile ring.
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
Will @IICSA_media have the balls to tackle the Colin Peters case or will it lay off out of deference to royal links. That is the big Q!
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
David Liddington – MoS at Foreign Office, promised that the FO would release the files immediately to Police and @IICSA_media Did they?
Peters went on to become a FO barrister and was arrested under Operation Hedgerow as key player in a huge organised child abuse ring.
Dec 2 2016 – Leader of the House of Commons David Lidington is made a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle.
Douglas Hurd and David Liddington, (PPS to Douglas Hurd, PPS to Michael Howard, PPS to William Hague
In May 2009, the Daily Telegraph revealed Lidington had claimed nearly £1,300 for his dry cleaning and had also claimed for toothpaste, shower gel, body spray and vitamin supplements on his second home allowance.[2]
In July 2016, Lidington was appointed as Leader of the House of Commons by new PMTheresa May)
Discovery77 @discovery77
‘I was warned off’ says detective involved in historic paedophile probe
A FORMER police chief told how his superiors tried to stop a major paedophile investigation, warning: “Don’t open the box, you will never get the lid back on.”
Mr Gaspar also wrote an internal report called People Not Property, which recommended a specialist paedophile unit be set up at the end of the 1980s, but it was shelved.
He recalled: “I put up a proposal asking that if we had an obscene publication unit, why can’t we afford a team to focus more on a proper intelligence led approach.
“My proposal went to the Yard but was rejected.”
Peters could have been kicked out of FO after Naples. Instead he was protected and allowed to continue abusing for 25 years
Peters got 8 years for Op Hedgerow. By current sentencing patterns (Napier) this would be 20 years.
Colin Peters, caught in Bay of Naples ferrying lads to British elite paedophiles on the islands.
Colin Peters was found guilty in a 1989 trial with others. In other words the state allowed him to go on abusing for 22 years.
How did Colin Peters go on to get government work after being apprehended as part of Op Hedgerow?
Laing and Colin Peters were arrested as junior members of HM Diplomatic Service in Naples in 1967, aged 23 and 24.
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
@DLidington David, aren’t you going to aswer my question on whether you passed Colin Peters case to @IICSA_media as promised to journalist?
The file relating to Colin Peters has been given to police and will be given to Alexis Jay inquiry team, should she request it.
Peters was convicted of child abuse together with Alan Delaney. He has a long history of providing boys to the elite
Brothers Patrick Norris & Sean Norris where in the dock with Colin Peters.
Clive Barton aka Jack Webb https://stillwandering.wordpress.com/page/116/
|
Pedophiles arrested
‘more powerful than the Mafia by Mark Burdman
On Feb. 2 , in London’ s Old Bailey court, four men were convicted for running a ring of pedophiles-adults who sex usually use children-which had recruited at least 150 young boys , some as young as nine, for repeated sodomic abuse.
It is the biggest ring of pedophiles yet uncovered in Britain.
British newspapers Feb. 3 said it had been run as a “Mafia
like conspiracy. ” One man arrested was too frightened to testify, declaring that the ring was “more powerful than the Mafia. “ According to experts on child abuse in Britain, this case is only the beginning. Interviewed on British television Feb. 3 , Dianne Core, head of the Childwatch organization, stated that “people in high places” were involved in pedophiliac activities , and that the whole matter would “explode” during the coming months.
The London Daily Telegraph’s crime correspondent reported Feb. 3 : “Despite the convictions , police believe there is still a flourishing pedophile network in Britain, with a sophistication said to resemble the Mafia. “
The most prominent figure in the ring, Colin Peters , was trained at Oxford, and was formerly a senior adviser in the British Foreign Office. Following his Foreign Office work, he prosecuted cases for the British Customs and Excise.Investigators working on the case had interrogated at least one senior member of the House of Lords , one vicar in West London, and officials in Whitehall , “but the police did not have sufficient evidence or manpower to pursue their suspicions ,” the Telegraph reported.
Alan Delaney, the official head of the ring, is a cleaning company director. Delaney would procure young boys for pedophiles , by putting job advertisements in the press .
The ring would also procure boys who were members of a junior soccer team. Many of the youngsters had been at special boarding schools for educationally below-normal children.
Others were runaways , who were caught up by members of the Delaney-Peters ring, who would roam” the streets of London scouting for boys .
According to the Feb. 3 Telegraph account, the young boys were “passed around its members for sexual degradation and, when the attraction faded, abandoned to a life of prostitution, drugs , and petty crime . . . . The boys were tempted off the unfamiliar London streets with promises of food,
accommodation, money, and a sympathetic ear. Some were plied with drugs, including cocaine, and sexually assaulted while under their influence.” When he was brought before presiding Judge Pownall for sentencing Feb. 3, Colin Peters was told: “On your own admission, you found boys to satisfy your lust. You were prepared to encourage them to drugs or to lace their drinks and you have made matters worse by trying to get witnesses not to attend court. You did that to save your own skin. That was disgraceful. You of all people should have known that. “
‘A permanent conspiracy’ British deputy police superintendent John Lewis , who oversaw the investigations , is calling on Scotland Yard to create a special squad to deal with pedophile rings. Lewis declared Feb. 2 that “these people are as organized and sophisticated as any other criminals, and are involved in a permanent conspiracy which is renewed daily as they hunt for new boys. They need to be targeted like bank robbers. It
is important that we should not feel complacent. Positive policing should be continued.” British police investigators were reportedly angered by the light sentence meted out to Peters , Delaney, and their two collaborators. The four received, in total, only 34 years of sentences. Peters received only 8 years, for combined charges of conspiracy to commit buggery (sodomy), buggery and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Delaney was jailed for 1 1 years , on conspiracy to commit buggery, indecent assault, taking indecent photographs , indecency with a child, and attempted buggery. One of the four was given only 6 years.
A senior British police officer told the Daily Express Feb.
4: “It should have been more. The damage these people have done to young lives is very severe.” In an editorial entitled, “Is This Justice?” the Express Feb. 4 called the sentences “woefully inadequate . . . weighed against the enormity of
their crimes and the emotional and physical damage they did to their victims , some of whom were only nine years old. “ Moncini and the Satanist track
The London case has refocused attention on another recent case, in Trieste, Italy, involving one Alessandro Moncini, a businessman nabbed by law enforcement in the United States and convicted in 1988 for importing child pornography (although he received a paltry one-year sentence and was released “on good behavior” after serving less than three
months in jail). Investigators in Trieste working on the Moncini case have recently been to the United States, attempting to accumulate more information on what they believe to be a “most exclusive ring of international pedophiles.”
Informed sources in Britain believe that the Delaney Peters ring and the Moncini-linked networks are connected,and that both are part of an international pedophile conspiracy.U. S. law enforcement officials have in their possession tapes of Moncini attempting to procure a young girl, for Satanic-ritual abuse purposes. Experts on ritual abuse stress that pedophile rings , as horrifying as they are in and of them selves , are actually fronts for, or extensions of, hard-core Satanist cults , for whom the pedophiles provide young boys. In Britain, however, the Home Office has repeatedly Should this attitude continue, it will be impossible to crack the command-structure controlling powerful pedophile rings. Investigative leads Experts in pedophilia and Satanism report to EIR, that |
link
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Colin Peters connected to Alessandro Moncini aka Sandro Moncini and member of the P2 Masonic Lodge.
Alessandro Moncini was arrested in California in relation to child pornography.
vruz @vruz
It’s noticeable how investigating football venues has become more acceptable than investigating Westminster.
AND the survivors of the football abusers are not being referred to as “the usual crop of fantasists, revenge-seekers and money-chasers” – quote from Ann Widdecombe referring to those making claims against former prime minister Sir Ted Heath.
Football child abuse scandal: Police identify 155 suspects
Dec 21 2016
The number of suspects in the UK-wide football child abuse scandal has reached 155, the National Police Chiefs’ Council has announced.
Police say there are now 429 potential victims, some as young as four at the time of the alleged offence, and 148 clubs are now involved.
Separate figures show the number of historical child abuse suspects across all walks of life stands at 3,469.
This is more than double the figure of 18 months earlier.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) set up Operation Hydrant to oversee investigations of “non-recent” child sex abuse within institutions or by people of public prominence.
The spotlight has fallen on abuse in football since a a number of former footballers came forward publicly to tell their stories and the number of suspects has almost doubled in a fortnight.
Sussex police report sex abuse claims involving six football coaches
THE historical sex abuse scandal unfolding in football continued to widen with a south coast police force becoming the latest to confirm it has received allegations
Dec 19, 2016
“None of the six reports relate to either of the two Sussex clubs in the Football League.”
Former youth footballer reveals links between sex abuse coaches
Dec 15 2016
Hugh Stevenson, a former youth coach and SFA assistant referee
The 62-year-old says he was molested byHugh Stevenson while playing for a club in Easterhouse.
A former youth footballer whose coach was convicted of abusing young players says he had links to other Scottish figures implicated in historic sex attacks.
Robert Smith is serving a two-year prison sentence for abusing three players at a club in Easterhouse, Glasgow, in the 1970s and 80s.
The 67-year-old had denied the offences but was found guilty after standing trial at Glasgow Sheriff Court earlier this year.
Following the nationwide revelations over historic sex abuse within British football, a former player who knew Smith in the 1960s talked to STV News and revealed his links to other Scottish coaches involved in the scandal.
The 62-year-old, known only as James, said his mother had warned him to stay away from Smith.
“He was always trying to kiss me, put his hand on me, but I ran away basically because I didn’t think this was right,” James said.
The former player said Smith was friends with Hugh Stevenson, a former youth coach and SFA assistant referee who died in 2004.
Earlier this month another former youth footballer accused Stevenson of subjecting him to repeated sexual abuse from 1979 to 1982. The abuse was reported to the police but Stevenson wasn’t prosecuted.
James says he was molested by Stevenson at Smith’s club in Easterhouse in the 1960s.
He said: “He came over and put his hand in my pockets and started to fumble about. I thought, ‘this is not right’. I came out of that dressing room sharpish.
“Robert Smith, Hugh Stevenson and another lad from Celtic Boys Club, Jim Torbett, all knew each other because we all played each other quite a lot.”
Jim Torbett was jailed in 1998 after being convicted of sex offences against young players.
At the end of Smith’s court case this summer, it emerged that he had been convicted of lewd and libidinous behaviour in 1968, ten years before he started abusing the three young players in Easterhouse.
Campaigners say the case adds weight to their calls for abuse in football to be examined by the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.
On Tuesday, the SFA announced that it was to establish an independent review into reports of historic child abuse in the sport.
The Scottish Government has declined to extend the inquiry’s remit beyond abuse against children who were in care, wherever it occurred.
Dario Gradi: Crewe Alexandra director suspended pending FA investigation
Dec 11 2016
Keith Vaz offers to put up bail for jailed Leicester footballers – jailed on rape charges
6 March 2004
Keith Vaz, the MP for Leicester East and a former government minister, yesterday offered to act as a guarantor for the release on bail of three Leicester City footballers held this weekend in a Spanish jail on rape charges.
Mr Vaz, a season ticket holder, said yesterday that the players were internationally known and could not disappear, so should be granted bail.
I will be happy to act as a guarantor,” he said.
Leicester and Villa named in football child abuse scandal as ex-Celtic kit man faces court
LEICESTER City and Aston Villa are the latest clubs to be probed in the football sex abuse scandal – as a former youth coach faces court today.
8th December 2016
The FA is reportedly investigating the Premier League champions and Championship club Villa in connection with former scout Ted Langford.
Langford was jailed in 2007 for the sexual abuse of four young players in the 1970s and 80s.
The news comes as former Scottish football coach Jim McCafferty, 71, faces court today following his arrest over sex abuse claims.
No photos available of former scout Ted Langford?
Probably the ones out there show him with Vaseline or Janner – so have already been pulled
Aston Villa scout jailed after sex abuse of boys
19 Dec 2007
QPR Chris Geiler & George Graham SECL champions youth team. Theo Foley FC champions reserves & Terry Venables 1982.
Queens Park Rangers dragged into sex abuse storm with former
John Murray with Chris Geiler – Chimney Corner Hotel Belfast Ireland 1986
Chris Geiler on Elm Guest House list
Chris Gieler – Queens Park Rangers FC FOOTBALL’S SHAME
The interesting part of this most recent Daily Mail scoop is that they spend their time attempting to discredit anyone who discloses abuse against the elite, famous or powerful. I believe that Chris Gieler being independently named as part of this probe, when he was also named within the Elm Guest House paperwork leaves the Fail in an uncomfortable position.
I believe the paperwork isn’t an absolute oracle on abuse, but this revelation does vindicate those who originally produced them (Fay & Moss) proving that some of those mentioned are done so correctly.
It’s good news for those coming forward to disclose abuse, but it’s time the paperwork was given the credit it’s due and some of those named (especially the big names) are properly investigated.
There’s another name alongside Gieler’s within the documents – William Field, St Albans. I know nothing about him or his position.
Chris Geiler – football coach – on Elm Guest House list
Document 4-6.. CHRIS GEILER QPR FOOTBALL CLUB. YOUTH TEAM LEADER. * PC
QPR club is in London Boro of Hammersmith & Fulham – not so far from Barnes and Elm
Matt Le Tissier’s testimony could be a game changer in child abuse scandal
Among the many strange stories told to me about the late Queens Park Rangers youth development officer, Chris Gieler, there was one from a Christmas party for staff and reserve team players at Loftus Road in the 1980s that gives you an idea of what an odd character he was.
The party was on the first floor of the South Africa Road stand with many of those present under the age of 18, when Gieler turned off the disco lights, which every works Christmas party presumably had as standard in the 1980s, and instead projected images from a pornographic film onto a wall.
Photo below from Elm Guest House Moss documents – man bears a resemblance to Geiler?
Vincent S. aged 10 yrs, from Grafton Children’s Home, was taken to Elm Guest House (above) and to a house in Bexhill, in East Sussex.
another photo taken at Chimney Corner Hotel in 1986
Stephen Lynch, with scout Bill Smith and John Murray – Chimney Corner Hotel in 1986
SL: Yes, Bill Smith got me over along with Kevin Kingsmore and John Murray.
SR: There were quite a few Northern Ireland boys at Loftus Road around that time. How did you come to be picked up ?
SL: John Murray, Kevin Kingsmore and myself, were spotted playing for the Northern Ireland Youth team.
SR: Chris Gieler would of been the Youth Development Officer at that time.
SL: Yes, Chris Gieler was at the club, Gielsy as we called him.
David McCallan
David quickly progressed through the ranks of the Northern Ireland age group teams, and the under-17 team that he played in included some interesting QPR connections. Stephen Lynch and John Murray (both at QPR), Steve Morrow (later of Arsenal and QPR) and David McCallan (then at Carrick Rangers) were all part of that squad.
Queens Park Rangers dragged into sex abuse storm with former
Queens Park Rangers are expected to be the latest club embroiled in the ever-growing sex abuse scandal that has resulted in one of the biggest crises to hit football.
Chris Geiler, QPR’s former chief scout, will be the name at the centre of the allegations.
He was head of youth recruitment for 30 years at Loftus Road before suddenly leaving the club in 2003 without warning or any recognition of his long service.
Queens Park Rangers’ former chief scout Chris Geiler will be named in sex abuse allegations
Nor did QPR mark his death a year later in any form.
A number of complaints about Geiler’s behaviour around QPR’s academy players dating back to the 1970s are known to have been made.
He was employed by QPR for about 30 years, working in youth development and as chief scout.
Mr Gieler arrived at Loftus Road in 1971 as a schoolboy scout and in 1979 he became youth development manager, responsible for the entire youth programme.
Another sportsman listed at Elm Guest House …
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
Are you aware that the fencing coach David Falcon-Steward was a written-up member of PIE and used his RWS to register?
It has been brought to my attention that David Falcon-Steward, the famous fencing coach, was PIE member no. 132.
David Falcon-Steward 1934-2012 Wolverhampton Fencing Club, a teacher at the Royal School in Wolverhampton.
The Royal School Wolverhampton- The school’s patron is Prince Edward, the youngest son of the Queen. Prince Edward succeeded his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, in this role.
whose former pupils include the Monty Python member Eric Idle
Child abuse at the Wolverhampton school 1987
Allen Lyndon Farr (44) of Aldersley Road, Wolverhampton, admitted indecently assaulting four boys at the school between September 1983 and Oct 1987
1987 – Mr. Christopher Hodson, defending, said Farr was highly regarded by parents, the school chaplain, a fellow teacher and two magistrates who had written letters of support to the court on his behalf.
He said Farr had been seriously injured in an accident in 1970, which could have released “a repressed form of homosexuality.”
“He has maintained that he thought what he was doing was helping him to get closer to the boys. But he now realises that it was a lack of judgment on his behalf.”
Affected
“This is not a homosexual housemaster, but a man whose judgment and control were affected by a serious accident which left him in intensive care for three days back in 1970,” added Mr. Hodson.
Judge John Evans, QC, told Farr: “There must be some vindication of the feelings of outrage of parents of boys at this boarding school. They are entitled to think their youngsters are being looked after and not abused.”
And another….West Midlands Police is still anxious to trace former Royal Wolverhampton School maths teacher, Philip Howarth, who failed to return to the UK after being cleared of sexually abusing a 14 year-old Thai boy.
Detectives had wanted to question the 40 year-old schoolmaster about pornographic material found at his home prior to the trial in Thailand. Philip Howarth is also a Wolverhampton magistrate
A MAGISTRATE and public school teacher has been arrested on holiday in Thailand after police found him with a 14-year-old boy in his hotel room.
Philip Howarth, 39, was seized on Sunday during a police swoop on suspected sex-tourists in the coastal resort of Pattaya.
Yesterday Mr Howarth denied having sex with the boy. He claimed the teenager was helping him learn to speak Thai – and accused police of trying to frame him as a paedophile with faked photographs.
Mr Howarth, a bachelor, is a serving Justice of the Peace who has sat at Wolver-
hampton Magistrates Court for the past six years. He teaches maths at the prestigious Royal Wolverhampton School, West Midlands, where he has been a member of staff for 15 years. …
^ Also mentioned multiple times was Tory minister Sir Rhodes Boyson, a well-known enthusiast for corporal punishment, and Education Secretary Sir Keith Joseph
Chard – Formed fencing club at Chard and taught science
Norwich is stunningly ‘absent’ For all the reasons below – inc Stingemore
Norwich is linked with convicted paedophile Fr Tony McSweeney, Frank Bruno (friends with Savile, Purdews), and Stephen Fry – who has made numerous inappropriate comments about paedophilia.
And Fr Tony McSweeney links to Elm Guest House (as does Chris Geiler)
McSweeney was arrested as a result of a police investigation into allegations that Elm House guesthouse in Barnes was home to a paedophile ring that preyed on boys from nearby Grafton Close children’s home.
Catholic priest guilty of historic Richmond Council children’s home abuse
McSweeney was found guilty of indecently assaulting one boy who he watched in the shower at Grafton Close children’s home in Hanworth alongside John Stingemore, the former manager of the home.
John Stingemore at the trial of Peter Sutcliffe..linked to Savile..linked to McSweeney…
And Norwich is rife :
Victims of a paedophile headmaster could receive tens of thousands of pounds in compensation following the beatings and sexual assaults that took place at a Norfolk school 30 years ago.
Derek Slade was beginning his first full day in prison yesterday after being sentenced to 21 years in jail following a catalogue of abuse at St George’s School in Wicklewood, near Wymondham, in the late 1970s and early 80s.
Neighbours of a Norwich sex offender, who has admitted running a national paedophile ring, have spoken of their horror, as the Evening News today reveals his list of previous paedophilia convictions.
Update: Nine men from Norfolk/ north Suffolk arrested as part of major sex crime crackdown across Britain
Norfolk’s chief constable Simon Bailey, who is the national lead for child abuse investigations
Over the course of his 40-year radio and television career Jimmy Savile visited Norfolk for shop openings and charity runs.
•In June 1970 Savile was in Dereham where he opened a boutique, Decimal Fashions, in Norwich Street, spending over an hour in the shop signing autographs.
•In October 1972 he roved around Norwich in a Rolls Royce as part of a visit promoting National Association of Youth Clubs’ week, visiting various youth clubs in the city, including Heartsease Community Centre, and spreading the message about providing facilities for young people.
•In November 1979 Savile jogged into Norwich as part of a charity effort which saw him run through 31 towns and cities in 31 days.
•In February 1990 the BBC stalwart was back in the city, at Anglia TV’s studios, to promote the 27-hour live Telethon spectacular which was hoping to top the £1m raised in 1988.
•In October of 1990 he opened a new complex in Norwich which gives disabled people a helping hand in starting a business.
From 2012….
via Trafficker
‘Paedophile’ at Premiership football club
AN ACADEMY boss at Premier League West Brom has been arrested over allegations of a sex attack on a young boy in the changing rooms.
Respected coach Mark O’Shea, 34, has worked with dozens of young prospects in nearly five years running the under-seven to under-11 groups at Albion’s academy.
But last night the club confirmed O’Shea had been arrested and interviewed after colleagues became “concerned” about his behaviour towards some schoolboys.
They tipped off senior club officials who suspended O’Shea and called in the cops.
It is believed some trainees were uncomfortable that O’Shea showered with them at the club’s Halfords Lane training complex, near the Hawthorns stadium.
O’Shea was arrested on March 31 and questioned about an alleged sexual assault on a boy under 13. O’Shea is on bail while inquiries continue. It is believed they may centre on complaints made by THREE schoolboys.
One furious dad turned up at the training ground asking to see O’Shea and threatening to “tear his f****** head off”.
A father with a boy at the academy said: “Everyone is in shock.
“Coaches at big academies can become Gods to these boys. This is a nightmare made flesh.”
West Midlands Police confirmed: “A 34-year-old man from Sutton Coldfield has been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a child under 13 and bailed while further enquiries take place.” O’Shea said last night: “I have no comment to make.”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4271497/.html
Gary Speed: Feeding Speculation And Waiting For The Secrets We Have No Right To Hear
http://www.anorak.co.uk/303405/sport…-to-hear.html/
In 1997, the Channel 4 Despatches did a programme about paedophile football coaches.
One particular coach named Barry Bennell ( later found guilty of abusing young boys) was a well know coach who found young talented players for some major clubs. His young starlets included Rob Jones who went on to play for Liverpool……. Andy Hinchcliffe and GARY SPEED.
Bennell was found guilty of abusing some of these young boys who were only 9,10.11 years old. His crimes took place between 1978 -1982. Gary Speed would have been around 9 or 10 years old at that time.
http://www.sovereignindependentuk.co…14/gary-speed/
Gary Speed’s name has been linked to events at Bridgend in Wales.
Gary Speed was born near Chester and died near Chester. Chester is near the childrens home at Bryn Estyn in Wrexham that was the centre of a child abuse scandal.
Over a dozen victims who complained of abuse by the paedophile ring ‘have met suspicious deaths’.”
medals given out like fix it badges.
Gary Speed stayed over at paedophile football coach Barry Bennell’s home but was ‘too clever’ to be a victim of abuse, his dad has suggested.
The ex-Wales manager, who took his own life in 2011, was coached by Bennell as a youth player and reportedly considered one of the convicted paedophile’s ‘protégés’.
He even stayed at the now- convicted paedophile’s Peak District home as a teenager – with other boys – and had an ‘alright’ time, Speed’s father, Roger, told The Telegraph .
But the late Leeds United star’s family insist that he was never targeted by Bennell, despite a number of former footballers revealing their abuse at the coach’s hands.
——————————————————
Football coaches in ‘paedophile ring’ passed each other details of boys they abused says ex-Leeds star who saw a youngster raped
- Jamie Forrester claims scout Frank Roper was part of football abuse ring
- Game’s scandal continues to grow with 350 complaints from players
- Complaints linked to 55 clubs including Chelsea and Southampton
YOUTH GOALIE: ‘I WROTE TO THE FA – BUT THEY IGNORED ME’
Former Charlton Athletic youth team goalkeeper Russell Davy has claimed that he tried to tell the FA he was abused over 30 years ago – but they never got back to him.
Davy, 50, said he was subjected to months of abuse by scout Eddie Heath when he was 15
Leeds area
Abuse and Death of Paul Kingsley 2
Little boy, Paul Kingsley was sexually assauted and then murdered. He was murdered in his scout uniform, strangled with the neckerchief.
Anthony Sinclair, manager of Pudsey Juniors Football Club was convicted of manslaughter as he claimed he killed Paul
Is Anthony Sinclair still alive?
Police determined Paul had been a victim of many sexual assaults in the months before the murder. See Paul Kingsley Assault and Death Bradford 1976 [2]
Who carried out these sexual assaults?
Was anyone else at Pudsey Juniors Football Club involved?
Philip Longbottom was another child abuser in the same sort of area carrying out assaults against young boys. Was he connected in any way? Paedophile Scout leader gets life sentence after abusing boys over 60 years [7] [8]
‘Please tell us why our Paul was killed’ – Bradford family’s battle for truth 40 years after boy scout was raped and strangled
She added: “I remember Paul playing football in the park, wearing his Leeds United strip, having fun. Our loss is as great as it was 40 years ago.”
LINK
27 November 2016
Leeds United ‘linked to child sex abuse football scandal’
Leeds United is the latest club to have been linked to the child sex abuse football scandal.
Leeds, along with Blackpool, were named today by Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Players’ Association in an interview with Radio Five Live’s Sportsweek.
Cassandra Cogno @CassandraCogno
BBC News – Football abuse: FA reacted ‘dismissively’ to protection callshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38242317 …
Decorated football coach linked with abuse at two clubs: Dario Gradi, who worked at Chelsea and Crewe, under pressure to explain what he knew
Dec 4 2015
- Dario Gradi, 75, was an assistant coach at Chelsea FC during the 1970s
- He is under pressure to explain what he knew about sexual abuse
- Gradi later became the manager of Crewe Alexandra in the 1980s
Mr Gradi, who was awarded an MBE for services to football in 1998, has denied any wrongdoing – but has yet to provide a full explanation about the disturbing abuse which allegedly took place during his time at both clubs.
Shortly after the 1994 promotion, Gradi became the League’s longest-serving manager. By 2002, he was one of just two managers, the other being Alex Ferguson, to have held their position since before 1990. He later joined the club’s Board of Directors.
Gradi’s contract with Crewe was one of the most controversial in the football league, he personally takes a percentage of profit on any player sold on to another club.[3]
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Stuart Hall arrives at Preston Crown Court, with solicitor Maurice Watkins, where he has admitted historic sex allegations.
Maurice Watkins Former Director Manchester United Football Club Ltd & Current Chairman of Barnsley Football Club
Paedophile Stuart Hall, his misunderstood pal Sir Alex Ferguson, Michael Le Vell and Foo Foo the drag queen
We all know filthy BBC paedophile Stuart Hall has been found guilty of the sickening abuse of young girls, some aged only nine.
“BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall has admitted 14 charges of indecently assaulting girls, one aged nine.
The 83-year-old of Wilmslow, Cheshire, pleaded guilty at Preston Crown Court to the offences, involving 13 victims, which occurred between 1967 and 1985.”
What’s less well-known is that Stuart Hall is a very close chum of Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
Hall paid tributeto Alex Ferguson in 2008:
He said:
“Sir Alex is a much misunderstood person.
He lives around the corner from me, and he’s a good friend.”
We now know that Sir Alex has resignedfrom his role at Manchester United.
The news came as a shock to football fans and commentators.
Why would Fergie resign days after Stuart Hall pleaded guilty to child abuse?
In November 2003, Sir Alex Ferguson attended the funeral of another close chum.
The chum in question was legendary drag queen Foo Foo Lamar.
” Football great Sir Alex Ferguson led mourners yesterday at a funeral for a drag queen pal.
Manchester United boss Sir Alex was joined at the ceremony for flamboyant cabaret artist Foo-Foo Lammar by former Old Trafford player Bryan Robson.
Judge’s sentencing remarks – Stuart Hall
Southampton FC schoolboy star reveals he had to queue up for naked soapy massages when he was aged just 11 as three other players name the child abuser ex-employee
- Former players claimed the same member of staff abused them in 1980s
- An alleged victim, Neil Kerton, gave graphic account of abuse he suffered
- Mr Kerton accused the club of ‘closing their eyes’ to the man’s behaviour
I warned FA about football paedophile 30 YEARS ago, says former youth player
Ex-Charlton Athletic player Russell Davy, now 50, says he wrote to the FA back in 1986 to reveal the pervert Eddie Heath had preyed on him
3 DEC 2016
A former youth footballer tells today how he warned the sport’s ruling body 30 years ago that talent scout Eddie Heath was a paedophile .
Ex-Charlton Athletic player Russell Davy, now 50, says he wrote to the FA back in 1986 to reveal the pervert had preyed on him – ruining not only his career but sending his life into a spiral of drink, crime and drugs.
Russell claims he detailed the abuse he had suffered at the hands of Heath – whose name is now at the centre of the “hush money” scandal rocking Chelsea – including attacks on a team bus and in the showers.
Now, breaking down in tears as traumatic memories flooded back at his home on a Spanish island, he blasted those who were in charge of the sport in the 1980s.
He said: “They had an obligation to help the young players Eddie Heath attacked. I’m gutted they never acted.”
He claimed he was abused as a 15-year-old at Charlton by Heath, who had turned up there after getting the sack from Chelsea.
Heath had claimed he was unfairly dismissed by the Stamford Bridge club and took it to a tribunal, which heard that rather than being out scouting “he spent a lot of his time in his office, decorating and cooking meals for the schoolboy players”.
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
Is this Ken Bates next to Chelsea’s Matthew Harding? And why did Bates consider Harding ‘evil’?
Russell Davy, circled, with his Charlton Athletic team
“So I did actually write a letter to the FA telling them what had happened to me, naming Eddie Heath as the person who had done it and naming Charlton Athletic.
“I begged them to investigate so it wouldn’t happen to any youngsters coming through the ranks.
“But I never got a reply back or any response, I don’t know if it was thrown in the bin but I did write it.
“It makes me angry. I was abandoned then and I still feel like nobody cares. I just want answers.
“I would love to speak to some of the other coaches at Charlton now. I am sure someone at the club knew.”
FA president Prince William ‘concerned’ about football’s child abuse scandal
Prince William became President of the FA in 2006 and celebrated 10 years in the role in April this year with a lunch at Wembley .
Police to investigate claims of Scottish paedophile ring
December 4 2016
Police Scotland said it would investigate the Falkirk “cluster” after more than 350 residents reported that they had been sexually abused
A National child abuse charity believes it has evidence that a paedophile ring thrived in central Scotland during the 1970s, after more than 350 men and women in Falkirk reported that they had been sexually abused by different people when they were children.
This weekend, Police Scotland said it would investigate the Falkirk “cluster” after Open Secret, a charity that supports abuse victims, revealed hundreds of residents — most now in their forties — had come forward saying that they had been raped and molested by multiple abusers.
Many of the victims were in sports clubs, including football and swimming groups, when they say the abuse occurred.
Andreas Baader @stop1984
Dec 7 Scottish Premiership club Partick Thistle admits it knew of sex abuse complaint
Details of three child sex abuse rings handed to police in wake of football scandal
Dec 11 2016
POLICE have been given information about three paedophile rings in the wake of the historical child abuse scandal that has rocked Scottish football.
Scottish child abuse charity Open Secret met with police, having uncovered some 367 people who had suffered multiple abuse mainly in the Falkirk area.
The charity told officers about three paedophile rings operating in central Scotland in the 1970s. It is believed they are rings that have previously been flagged up to Police Scotland, but did not lead to an investigation.
First minister rejects call to widen abuse inquiry
-
8 December 2016
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has rejected calls for the Scottish inquiry into historical child sexual abuse to be widened to include football clubs.
Sad news about #JimmySavile. Once had lovely chat with him in Franco’s at Central Station. A real treat for a child of the Jim’ll Fix It era
Seventeen more footballers claim they were abused as children
Dec 3, 2016
More than 20 players had already contacted the union to report historical sex abuse.
Some 18 police forces are now examining claims from more than 350 people, across 55 clubs.
“I’ve had 17 individuals who don’t want to go public but want to put weight behind the guys who have gone public, and I think that number is going to continue to grow,” Michael Bennett, head of player welfare at the PFA, told Sky News.
There are another 27 potential victims the PFA is keen to contact, he added.
“I think we are looking at things from previous decades that are finally surfacing.”
Celtic Chairman Kevin Kelly pictured with paedophile Sir Jimmy Savile and Fr O’Connell
link
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Jimmy Savile & Sports Celebrities
Prince Charles and Fr Denis O’Connell
THE CELTIC SEX CASE
What Did Celtic Chairman Kevin Kelly Know?
Cardinal Keith O’Brien was friends with sex predator Jimmy Savile
The pair met when O’Brien was priest at St Patrick’s Church in Kilsyth, Lanarkshire, in 1971.
Savile was a regular visitor because his mother Agnes was friends with O’Brien’s colleague, Fr Denis O’Connell.
Since 1965, when the Margaret Sinclair Center opened, Agnes Savile made a pilgrimage to the Margaret Sinclair Centre in Rosewell, Scotland
May 1968
Savile led 500 teenagers on a sponsored walk to pay for the Margaret Sinclair Centre in Rosewell, played football in a half Rangers, half Celtic jersey for St Joseph’s Hospital and gave a sermon at a teenagers’ mass
(pg 26 – In Plain Sight, The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile, Dan Davies)
Niven Sinclair – Three times convicted Child Rapist worked for the BBC for 30 years
For both the Kilsyth Community Games and for Kilsyth Civic Week, of which he was a particular supporter, Fr O’Connell often utilised his old celebrity contacts and other than the perennial visitor Jimmy Saville, for many years Kilsyth was awash with celebrity visitors including Jock Stein (Celtic), Billy McNeil (Celtic), Sir Tom Farmer (Founder of Kwik-fit), Willie Woodburn (Rangers), George Young (Rangers), Frank Clement (International Athlete, Scotland), Brendan Foster (International Athlete, England), Eamonn Coghlan (International Athlete, Ireland), John Spencer (World Snooker Champion) and Tommy Younger (President of the SFA) Kevin Kelly (Chairman of Celtic) were a few that come to mind.
http://saintpatrickskilsyth.org.uk/saintpatricks/new_histories_canon_o_connell.htm
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One man from Kilsyth, who was a schoolboy at the time, said: “Savile was here often over a period covering the mid-1970s. We were amazed to see him at first because he was always on TV. When we saw him about the town, he was always with Fr O’Connell or Fr O’Brien.
“We would see the flash Roller parked outside the school because it was right next to the priests’ house and we’d know Savile was in town.
“Over the next few days, you would see him out and about in the town, normally with the priests.
“They were always on a fundraising exercise. It was always assumed that Savile stayed with the priests overnight. I’d say over three to four years, you would see Savile twice a year. It got to the stage that it was no longer a surprise.
“As I got older, there were stories that Savile had stopped coming to Kilsyth because he had been interfering with young girls. It was the talk of the place for a while.
Jim Torbett – founded the Celtic Boys Club and was Appeals Organiser with the Glasgow Area Union Youth Clubs
The Celtic boys club scandal where boys were abused from day one in the sixties right around the world on trips.
One almighty cover up to protect the name of Celtic by several managers, directors and more.
Jim Torbett who was convicted was also a director of Fairbridge Scotland for vulnerable kids along with an ex Met chief, top judge and Lord McAlpines brother.
The chief of Celtic and the boys club was also at Kilsyth with Jimmy Savile and Cardinal O’Brien. What a tangled web all for boys who only wanted to play football.
link
Jimmy Savile and Princess Alexandra meet at Avon Tyrrel House for disadvantaged children in New Forest
Jimmy Savile and Nottingham footballers 1977
Jimmy Savile and 1978 and Goalkeeper Peter Shilton of Nottingham Forest F.C. – 6 lucky youngsters
Fairbridge’s patron was Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy, (Sir Jimmy Savile’s good friend – Duncroft ) its President was Damon Buffini and Vice-Presidents were Lady Dodds-Parker and Sir William McAlpine.[2]
Duncroft Approved School –
….guests that includedJimmy Savile, Princess Marina (the Duchess of Kent) and Princess Alexandra; fading film stars such as James Robertson Justice, who starred in the Doctor in the House films, John Gregson, who was in a number of big British war movies, and Ian Carmichael, who played Bertie Wooster in a big BBC TV series in the Sixties. Another visitor was Dick Haymes, an actor and crooner who was famous in the Forties and Fifties and who was married six times, once briefly to Rita Hayworth. Jones described his aunt ‘swanning around as the grand dame of the event, with a celeb on each arm’. ‘It was a really strange scene,’ he (Merion Jones) said
Among the girls at Duncroft were daughters of ambassadors, surgeons and well-known producers at the BBC, as well as others from less white-collar backgrounds. The common factors were they had transgressed and all possessed high IQs. Margaret Jones viewed them as ‘her chosen ones’. 2 Girls were sent to Duncroft for a variety of misdemeanours. One girl, who arrived at the school as a 14-year-old in 1972, insisted years later that ‘half the girls victims of sexual abuse – the “crime” of having sex under age, as we thought it’.
In Plain Sight: the Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile
More here on the Fairbridge Society link
Hon Sir William McAlpine was a director of Fairbridge & then Fairbridge in Scotland (vulnerable kids) that became part of The Prince’s Trust.
William McAlpine is brother to Lord Alistair McAlpine
Lord Alistair McAlpine (above), who was at the centre of the UK child abuse scandal, is listed in Jeffrey Epstein’s Black Book.
Keith Gregory, a Wrexham councillor who was himself a victim of abuse at Bryn Estyn, has told The Guardian, boys from Bryn Estyn were taken by van to work in the grounds of the McAlpine homes.
One of William McAlpine’s fellow directors at Fairbridge in Scotland was James Torbett of the Celtic boys club scandal –
Torbetts boss at Celtic was Kevin Kelly who wanted the name of Celtic kept clean at all costs….
Torbett then made him a director at his business The Trophy Centre. Kevin Kelly was pictured at Kilsyth with Jimmy Savile, Keith O’Brien etc.
The sheriff in charge of the Torbett court case said the supporting letters for him made her weep – no much wonder given his connections.
Hon Sir William McAlpine surrounded by paedos and knew absolutely nothing ???
Talking of Celtic…. Dr. Gerry McCann worked for the club’s medical team.
Madeleine, from Rothley, Leicestershire, disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve.
Her father, Gerry, had worked for Celtic before moving to England
Relatives of missing Madeleine McCann have joined 60,000 fans at the Scottish Premier League match between Celtic and Aberdeen to mark her fourth birthday.
Players from both clubs wore yellow wristbands during the game at Celtic Park in Glasgow.
Supporters also held up posters of Madeleine, who is believed to have been abducted in Portugal on 3 May.
Neil Lennon – Celtic It is important that it is highlighted to the family that they are in our thoughts and prayers at this time.
Celtic said Saturday’s gesture was intended to keep the focus on the search for the missing girl.
A Celtic spokesman said: “We were approached to wear the yellow armbands and naturally we were very happy to agree to this. Hopefully, this will keep the focus on the search for Madeleine.
“Clearly, the thoughts of everyone at the club are with Madeleine and her family at this extremely difficult time and, of course, we are pleased to be able to offer any kind of help or comfort that we possibly can.”
Celtic club captain Neil Lennon appealed for anyone with information about Madeleine’s disappearance to contact police during Friday’s weekly press conference.
Hearts players Jose Goncalves and Bruno Aguiar, who are both Portuguese, also issued a joint statement on behalf of their club urging anyone with information to come forward.
Mar 17 2017
Why did Tony Blair and Gordon Brown rush MI5 to Portugal to ‘help’ the McCanns, and why were they demanding all photographs from everyone there?
The information put together by Richard D Hall is quite amazing. In this part of his investigation, he examines why the British government showed such intense interest in the alleged abduction of Madeleine McCann. It does make you wonder who else might have been involved. Was there someone very high up in British politics present in Portugal during Madeleine McCann’s ‘disappearance’? Blair or Brown possibly?
Fr O’Connell meets Prince Charles with the other members of the Cumbernauld & Kilsyth Silver Jubilee Committee at the Opening of the Westerwood Youth Camp in 1978.
What is it folk say about boys or sports clubs being used as fronts for deviants…
3 years of articles on the Celtic scandal – but you won’t get any mention of it in the press now – it is toxic for some reason – maybe the people involved? Weird when you think of broken boys into men and lives ruined for what those boys and unknown must have suffered and yet no real justice or compensation akin to the Penn State scandal.
What could have went on in Kilsyth where you have Kelly, Saville, O’Brien, Jock Stein, O’Connell, Tam Paton n the Bay City Rollers etc all around the same time and Prince Charles himself....
Also one-time boxing champ Ken Buchanan pictured above there at the camp meeting Prince Charles – one with a very dodgy private life
James Torbett and Frank Cairney of Celtic boys club abused boys in Scotland, England, Norway, Spain and America amongst other places and it was well known at Celtic. Liam Brady manager at the time of the 1991 scandal involving Frank Cairney agreed not to go to the police – Liam Brady then went on to be the head of Arsenal Youth until this year.
What a coincidence that Kevin Kelly should be in photo above eh. Even more of a coincidence James Torbett being owner of the trophy centre at the time who had a deal with Celtic and had Kevin Kelly as a director too along with Jack McGinn of Celtic in another company.
Torbett was also a director of Fairbridge in Scotland for vulnerable kids that later became part of yes… The Princes Trust. His fellow directors at the time included none other than…
Sir David McNee – ex Met police commissioner
Sir William McAlpine – brother of Lord McAlpine
Lord McCluskey – judge
Partly because of his association with the BBC, Fr O’Connell was no stranger to celebrity which he used to good effect either for fund raising or for community events. Now, summer rock festivals are commonplace but there was a time when they were uncommon and one well remembered event set up by Fr O’Connell was the staging of a free open air concert in Kilsyth in 1976 by the Bay City Rollers, then at the height of their fame.
He vaguely knew Tam Paton their manager but his secretary wouldn’t let him in to his office after he had outlined why he was there – to get the Bay City Rollers to play Kilsyth – for free! But eventually she relented and he was allowed to make an audacious request which ultimately lead to another chapter of Kilsyth’s recent history being written! The Colzium was taken over and a free open air concert was staged with many supporting acts and headlined by The Bay City Rollers.
Sir Jimmy Savile OBE KCSG was a frequent visitor during the period when he had a hit TV show ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ or was in between presenting ‘Top of the Pops’ or hosting a show on Radio 1 and could often be seen at 10 O’clock Mass of a morning, sporting a kilt. You could always tell when he was in Kilsyth as his white jaguar car was parked outside the Parish House.
If the cover-ups took place, and did so without Britain’s top policeman knowing, and there is no evidence that casts doubt on Sir David’s testimony, who was responsible? The IPCC and the independent inquiry into historical VIP paedophile allegations launched by Home Secretary Theresa May last year have got their work cut out.
But with each passing week, it seems ever more likely that the pieces of an almighty Establishment scandal are starting to fit together.
Torbett was also a director of Fairbridge in Scotland for vulnerable kids that later became part of yes… The Princes Trust. His fellow directors at the time included none other than…
Sir David McNee – ex Met police commissioner
Sir William McAlpine – brother of Lord McAlpine
Lord McCluskey – judge
Lord McCluskey – Fettesgate
Retired judge Lord McCluskey was among those to write a glowing tribute to paedophile Robert Henderson QC of Magic Circle in the national Press.
My father was feted by legal establishment, but was really a monster who let his powerful friends rape me
Miss Henderson has told the Mail that she was raped as a young child by Sir Nicholas – and that she also suffered years of sexual assaults by her late father, prominent Scottish QC Robert Henderson, who was a friend of the MP.
Her life is still overshadowed by the monstrous actions of her father and his friends – a set of high-powered legal figures who, she says, ritually abused her as part of an organised paedophile ring in the early 1970s when she was between four and eight years old.
Sir David McNee rose to become the most powerful policeman in Britain.
As Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police between 1977 and the autumn of 1982, he wielded great influence and, by necessity, became privy to secrets which other, less robust men would have taken to their graves long ago. But on the eve of his tenth decade, and 33 years after his retirement from the top job, a cloud — or at least a question mark — has appeared over his time as boss at New Scotland Yard.
It concerns an alleged ‘cover-up’, and in this instance the circumstances are particularly disturbing, given that it would have involved turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse of minors.
A planned raid was called off at the last moment, allegedly on orders from senior Met command. Photographs and papers that could have been used as evidence then went missing, one officer who was part of the surveillance team has alleged.
The allegation is from the same era as the BBC’s story concerning Cyril Smith. If true, who could have ordered such scandalous and, indeed, criminal interventions? Not the then Met boss David McNee, according to the man himself.
The man in question, Joe Mounsey, was renowned for his detective work, not just in the North-West but nationally.
He had led the team that secured the conviction of Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.
Mr Laugharne told us this week that Mounsey had said to him that a very senior figure in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in London had asked their force to lie about past investigations into Cyril Smith…
If approached by a journalist asking about a file on Smith, which the force had sent to the DPP alleging the indecent assault of a boy at a Rochdale school, the official said they should deny it. Mr Laugharne told us he had seen a record of such a file being sent.
The interference in justice did not end there. As this newspaper reported on its front page yesterday, a former probationary police officer in Greater Manchester was also threatened with the Official Secrets Act by a paedophile police sergeant after the MP had been caught in 1988 at a drunken party with two underage boys.
Former Met Deputy Commissioner Laugharne said he has watched with horror the recent allegations of the deliberate failure to follow through with investigations against Smith and other alleged VIP paedophiles.
Mounsey died in 1997 at the age of 73. Awarded the Queen’s Police Medal for his work at the head of Lancashire CID, he became assistant chief constable in 1976 and retired in 1988, when he was awarded the OBE.
The father-of-three’s two sons also went on to become policemen.
THE CELTIC SEX CASE
Celtic Chairman Kevin Kelly pictured with Jimmy Savile among others.
Of the four companies that Jim Torbett was involved in Celtic Chairman Kevin Kelly was involved with three of them.
- PLANROLE LIMITED Dissolved
- CENTENARY SCOTCH WHISKY LIMITED Dissolved
- THE TROPHY CENTRE LIMITED
More worryingly … a fourth company that Convicted Paedophile Jim Torbett was a director in
FAIRBRIDGE IN SCOTLAND Dissolved (Director Resigned 20/02/1997)
FAIRBRIDGE IN SCOTLAND a charity involved with helping young people.
DID Jim Torbett have access to young children there too?
ww:
I’d suggest he could well have. Usual MO – Savile style – great benefactor/charity/biz/celeb -targets impressionable/vulnerable/disadvantaged.
Gossip suggests a problem – it’s never followed up because of the £££££ – just like that old Max Clifford video – turning a blind ‘eye’ in exchange for donations……
ONCE AGAIN….
They knew all about Bennell
Former Celtic kitman arrested in Belfast over sex abuse claims
Jim McCafferty was involved in football in Scotland and Ireland from 1980s
• The 71-year-old was arrested by detectives after walking into a police station
Ex-Celtic and Hibs coach Jim McCafferty now living in Belfast admits sexually abusing young players
‘There are so many I can’t remember’: Paedophile former Celtic coach, 71, who waged a 20 year campaign of sexual abuse against young players admits his crimes
Dec 7 2016
A former kitman for Celtic who is now living in Belfast has confessed to years of sexual abuse of young footballers – which he described as “a bit of fun, a bit of hilarity on that side”.
One of the young players that McCafferty has admitted to preying on, took his life more than 30 years later.
Jim McCafferty who was a youth coach for Celtic, Hibs and Falkirk faces a police investigation now following his admission and has offered to hand himself in to the PSNI.
The 71-year-old from Wishaw, Lanarkshire admitted to the Daily Record he had “paedophile tendencies” in the 80s and 90s while coaching at West Lothian.
He has also admitted abusing young players at Celtic between 1990 and 1996.
He compared some of the scenes in the dressing rooms after wins to a “teenage orgy”.
“Yes, that’s what it was like. It was a bit of fun and enjoyment for them to have, but as adults we should have used our brains and stepped in and stopped it.
Jim McCafferty worked for charity with ties to notorious paedophile Jim Torbett
McCafferty was employed by Drake Fellowship – later Fairbridge Drake – which took homeless boys on overnight trips
Torbett, who was later jailed for abusing three boys at Celtic Boys Club, was the managing director of the charity, which eventually became Fairbridge in Scotland.
FA director of coaching was asked about serial paedophilia in football 21 years ago… that he ignored a reporter’s questions spoke volumes
- Twenty-one years ago reporter Deborah Davies investigated allegations of systematic sexual abuse of young footballers by their coaches
- She stood outside FA headquarters at Lancaster Gate in order to speak with the governing body’s then-director of coaching, who ignored her
- Andy Woodward recently told his account of paedophilia within football
- Ex-Crewe player said he was victim of abuse by ex-coach Barry Bennell
- Eleven people have now come forward to say they were abused
- READ: Martin Samuel – ‘Revelations should send a chill through football’
- READ: The scandal that could be worse than Jimmy Savile
Twenty-one years ago I opened a large cardboard box and uncovered a horrific story. Teenage footballers, gifted and driven by dreams of a glittering future, had endured years of the most appalling sexual abuse by their coach.
A few months later I stood for hours outside the FA’s former headquarters in Lancaster Gate, waiting for their director of coaching to arrive. I asked him what rules the FA had in place for the protection of young players.
He ignored me, not even breaking stride as he walked inside. Unfortunately for him the building had a glass front door so we filmed him walking away down the corridor, with nothing to say. And that spoke volumes.
Crewe under fresh scrutiny after youth football ban on Barry Bennell emerges
• Bennell forcibly removed from at least one game on Crewe scouting duties
29 November 2016
Barry Bennell has served three prison sentences totalling 15 years in England and the US since
Crewe Alexandra’s handling of the Barry Bennell affair is under new scrutiny after it emerged their former youth-team coach was so notorious throughout the sport he had been banned from attending fixtures in one of Manchester’s leading junior leagues.
Bennell’s reputation was so tarnished he was forcibly removed from at least one game while on talent-spotting duties for Crewe, and so badly thought of that on another occasion it led to a fight on the sidelines.
Bennell’s behaviour was discussed at a meeting involving representatives of various junior teams, the Guardian has been told, and Andy Woodward, the former professional footballer whose interview began the escalating story of child sex abuse in the sport, has confirmed to this newspaper that he, too, witnessed his abuser being thrown out of junior games.
“If kids’ teams in Manchester knew about him, and Bennell’s reputation had stretched all the way to grassroots junior football 40 miles away from Crewe, it is strange, to say the least, that Crewe are saying they had heard absolutely nothing to trouble them about their own employee,” Woodward said.
Bennell became so infamous in the junior football scene in Manchester, his home city, that he was ejected from a game involving Cheadle Town’s youth team when the manager saw him on the touchline.
The manager, who has asked not to be named, told the Guardian that at a 1990 meeting of the various teams from the now-defunct Manchester Youth Sunday Football League a senior official had told the clubs to be vigilant and not to allow Bennell to watch matches.
Bennell, who was running Crewe’s youth system at the time, subsequently turned up at Cheadle, a team that regularly attracted football scouts from professional clubs, and the game was temporarily halted.
“Everyone in junior football at that time knew the rumours about Barry Bennell,” the manager said. “As soon as I saw him I marched across the pitch with one of the boys’ parents and we told him we had an issue with him being there. I didn’t stop the match but the referee had to blow his whistle because we had gone straight across the pitch, rather than walking round the edge, and made a direct beeline for him.
“It had been made clear to us that if he came to watch a match we were to ask him to leave immediately and that, if he refused, the advice was that we should go to the police. He knew straight away he’d been rumbled. I got hold of him and walked him to the gate and slung him out. And if we hadn’t have done that,
Seems glaringly obvious that despite the Celtic scandal and FA so-called investigation – there are no safeguards for youngsters – then or now. Given that footie is a No 1 sport in UK – these revelations will either wake up more of the population to the extent of child abuse around them – or they will tune out – because of info overload.
A key subliminal emphasis tho is that people are now believing the testimonies from adults who were abused as children. By inference then it bolsters the credibility of care home children who waited years to speak out.
AND who is going to accuse a successful professional footballer of being a compensation seeker???? – which is what ex care home children are most often accused of.
Kevin Eaton – child protection officer/coach – relatively recent case
There are NO safeguards
link
Rocked by evil of abuse.
1997
Football has been hit by several allegations of child sex abuse during the last 12 months.
Former Scotland star Alan Brazil claimed last year that he had been sexually abused when he was a young apprentice with Celtic Boys Club.
Following his allegations, other players came forward and two former Boys Club bosses Jim Torbett and Frank Cairney were charged in connection with their claims.
The claims against Torbett, 47, and Cairney, 56, date back several years and involve alleged assaults on two youths who went on to become Celtic first-teamers.
It is understood some charges relate to incidents on tours to England and North America.
Then in January former referee and youth club official Neil Strachan, 28, was jailed for three years for repeatedly molesting a young boy.
Strachan, a secretary at Edinburgh-based Celtic East Boys Club, abused the lad for two years before he was caught.
When he was jailed, it emerged that he had been convicted of a similar offence 12 years ago.
Sentencing Strachan, Sheriff Andrew Bell said: “This was particularly disgusting and disgraceful.”
Last month, Crystal Palace youth coach Martyn Cook was found guilty of serious sexual assaults against two young boys and indecently assaulting another six.
During his trial, it was revealed that 47-year-old Cook, a public school teacher, had a system of spending as much time as possible with “favourites” among his pupils.
He would take them to Crystal Palace matches, even turning trips to away games into weekend outings.
He also bought his favourite boys trendy clothes made by popular teenage fashion labels such as Ben Sherman and Ralph Lauren.
The sex beast put himself in further close contact with youngsters by gaining a position as one of Crystal Palace’s community youth training scheme coaches.
The father of one of his victims told the Sunday Mirror: “After Cook was arrested for sexually assaulting my two sons, I went round to the home of Ron Noades, the Palace chairman, to warn him. I spoke to Mrs Noades who was absolutely horrified. She telephoned Ron while I was there and he indicated he would stop Cook working with the young players.”
Palace’s reserve team coach Steve Kember stood by Cook, appearing at the Old Bailey as a character witness.
After the case, Kember said: “I now feel very badly let down. I trusted Martyn.”
Cook is to be sentenced on June 20.
In Ireland, Gaelic football has also been rocked by child-sex allegations.
Police launched an investigation after several young men and women claimed they had been the victims of sex assaults by an official attached to the game’s governing body, the Gaelic Athletic Association.
Scottish paedophile ring found guilty of more than 50 charges
• Two offenders abused children of close friends
A ring of eight paedophiles, including a former welfare campaigner for young gay men, were today convicted of child abuse and producing indecent images of children. The men, from across central Scotland, were found guilty by a jury in Edinburgh of more than 50 charges, ranging from abusing infants from three months old to conspiracy and holding more than 125,000 images of child pornography.
Two of the leaders of the gang, the biggest paedophile network uncovered in Scotland, were convicted of raping and abusing the young children of close friends while they were babysitting, and sharing images of the abuse.
One, James Rennie, 38, then the chief executive of the gay and lesbian helpline LBGT Youth Scotland, had been babysitting the son of close friends, called Child F during the trial, since the child was three months old. The child’s parents were so comfortable with Rennie that he was allowed to bathe, change and dress the boy, whom he went on to abuse repeatedly for four years, allowing another ring-leader, Neil Strachan, to participate.
Rennie, a former secondary school teacher since sacked from the helpline, had championed the rights of young gay people. But in private, said Dorothy Bain QC, prosecuting, he had been “polluted by deviant compulsion”.
During one of the most harrowing trials of its kind, the images were so graphic that the court had to be cleared of the public and media during the 10-week hearing. At one stage, the judge, Lord Bannatyne, suddenly adjourned the hearing without explanation after hearing about the rape of a four-year-old girl.
The police uncovered the paedophile ring after Strachan, a maintenance engineer for a paint firm and formerly secretary of Celtic Boys Club in Edinburgh, handed his computer in for repair.
7,000 images were found, together with emails clearly showing that other children were at serious risk. Lothian and Borders detectives launched Operation Algebra, and were given warrants by courts in the United States to obtain email records from Microsoft. Expert witnesses were able to identify one digital camera used to record the abuse from the photographs.
The 41-year-old was jailed for three years in 1997 for repeatedly molesting a boy. In a sickening echo of the abuse he was yesterday convicted of, the former youth football club official started preying on the boy when he was only five, after befriending his parents. Strachan quit as secretary of Edinburgh-based Celtic East Boys Club after he was caught. The abuse had gone on for two years.
The abusers, including a respected youth leader (James Rennie) — who had met Tony Blair and the Queen
Abuse ringleader James Rennie has minimum sentence cut
-
18 November 2011
One of the ringleaders of Scotland’s biggest paedophile network has had his minimum prison sentence cut by four-and-a-half years by appeal judges.
James Rennie is serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting a three-month-old and for conspiring to get access to children in order to abuse them.
Rennie, from Edinburgh, was ordered to serve a minimum of 13 years in jail.
Appeal judges have reduced that to a minimum of eight-and-a-half years before he can apply for parole.
Judge Lord Clarke, sitting with Lord Philip, said: “We wish to make it clear that that does not mean he will be released after that period of time.
One of the most worrying aspects of the case is the way Rennie
was able to reach a position where he could influence Executive
policy on child sexuality.
A trained teacher, Rennie became the boss of LGBT Youth
Scotland, a publicly-funded support group for lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender young people.
He took on the £40,000 a year role when the group was set up in
2003 and became the Executive’s most important and influential
adviser on gay issues affecting children.
Under his leadership, the group backed proposals to allow gay
adoption.
As well as appearing in the Scottish parliament, he
was invited to a Royal Garden Party and to Downing Street.
Church bell ringer Neil Campbell, 46, was cleared of that charge. But all six, along with Slaven and John Murphy, 44, were found guilty of charges relating to child pornography.
link
Jamie Rennie began working with LGBT Youth Scotland – which provides support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people – as a group worker in 1997. Every week, the trained teacher would provide emotional support and advice for about 20 youngsters aged between 13 and 18 at a community centre in the Tollcross area of Edinburgh. After a year working directly with young people, Rennie moved into management and rose to become chief executive of LGBT Youth Scotland in 2003. He studied physics at Heriot-Watt University, after which he trained as a teacher. It was during his studies that he became friends with the parents of “Child F” – who he would go on to abuse during babysitting sessions.
“Got my physics degree from Heriot-Watt Uni in ’93 and then did a sabbatical year as student union president.
“Am chief executive of a national youth charity, currently the chair of my professional peer grouping — the National Voluntary Youth Organisations’ Chief Officer’s Group.”
Convicted paedophile James Rennie worked closely with Edinburgh youth politician John Loughton, who won the Celebrity Hijack edition of Big Brother, on committees and forums on youth issues.
Rennie has also given evidence to the Scottish parliament’s equal opportunities committee.
link
In 2007 John was elected the youngest ever Chair of the Scottish Youth Parliament, one of the world’s most innovative and admired youth governance bodies. John is maybe best known for winning the UK’s Big Brother Celebrity Hijack TV show in 2008. This led to a string of media appearances, political commentary roles and high profile media campaigns.
In 2011, he set up leadership training social enterprise Dare2Lead – which has grown to employ numerous staff, take six-figure turnovers and empower over 20,000 clients.
Internationally, he has represented 1.2 billion young people when he addressed 54 Heads of State at the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting in Australia and served as Prime Minister of the Youth Diplomatic Service at the G8 and G20 Summits in Washington DC.
John has served a number of policy roles including Vice Convener of the Scottish Parliament’s Child and Youth Committee (CPG), Britain’s Literacy Commission, Advisory Council of the Scottish Human Rights Committee and co-Chair of the Commonwealth Gender Network. He was also appointed by the UK Prime Minister to a national Policy Commission advising on the Constitution.
John successfully enrolled on the prestigious UNESCO Comparative Human Rights Leadership programme at Connecticut University and was globally voted JCI Outstanding Youth of the World 2013 – joining an elite including John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Henry Kissinger.
His public policy career involved running Public Affairs for leading NGOs The Prince’s Trust, Fairbridge and Relate – where latterly he worked for Baroness Tyler of Enfield. He is an Ambassador for The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Young Charity Trustees and is a Trustee of the Royal Commonwealth Society.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2ymBYOa40FYJ:dare2lead.co.uk/jloughton/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Paedophile Scots in toddler murder probe
MEMBERS of the largest paedophile gang in Scotland were last night facing life behind bars as it was revealed police were investigating links to a child murder.
Stop calling the football child sex abuse scandal ‘bigger than Savile’
It could be worse than Jimmy Saville: Footballer who broke his silence over abuse by a youth coach speaks out as more ex-players come forward in a week and dozens more could follow
- Ex-Crewe player Andy Woodward said he was abused by Barry Bennell
- His account prompted former teammate Steve Walters to come forward
- Ex-England star Paul Stewart has claimed he was abused by another coach
- Woodward said he feared ‘hundreds’ of youth players had been targeted
Eleven people have come forward to Cheshire Police since hearing Woodward’s story and the ex-footballer said others had contacted him directly.
Asked how many he thought had been involved, Woodward said: ‘[Reports] say a monster, that’s an understatement. I’m talking hundreds [of youths].’
Bennell was sentenced to nine years in prison in 1998 after admitting sexual offences against six boys.
He is currently out on licence after being jailed again in 2015 for a historical case involving a 12-year-old boy.
This isn’t football’s ‘Savile’ moment. It’s worse
Not perhaps in the quantity of damaged lives and broken victims. We may never know how many people Savile or football coach Bennell violated, but it seems likely both have hundreds of victims.
Savile was never tried or convicted.
Not so with Bennell. He was convicted, not once but three times.
His first jail term came in the US but his victim was British.
In 1998 he was jailed for nine years here, and again in 2015. Anyone who cared to look at these convictions could see what he had done and where.
Yet the game did nothing to challenge those that might have known.
This indifference did not happen on the distant planet of the 1970s…
.. on the eve of the new millennium. Gazza’s tears and Euro 96 had revived football’s place in the national culture, the Premier League was up and running, Posh & Becks were an item and Tony Blair was in Downing Street.
The FA’s director of coaching, Charles Hughes, was able to blank Deborah Davies, the only journalist to show an interest, without fear of interrogation from his employer or a follow-up from Fleet Street.
Crewe Alexandra, who shuffled Bennell out of a side-door in 1992 without explanation, leaving him free to move on to other clubs, said nothing.
Scandalously, despite legally tested evidence, the game did not hold itself to account for harbouring a rampant paedophile who devastated hundreds of lives.
Dame Alun Roberts CH @ciabaudo
Barry Bennell victim David Lean told police of hundreds more but ‘no one listened’
29 Nov 2016
Speaking publicly for the first time, David Lean tells Sky News that when he warned the authorities “no one wanted to listen”.
Mr Lean, now 48, was just 11 when he met the coach in 1979 on a family trip to a holiday camp at Pwllheli, north Wales, where Bennell ran a football course.
Jimmy Savile, with his mother Agnes Savile and Billy Butlin
^ Butlins holiday camp
In February 1998, Bennell appeared at Mold Crown Court in north Wales and pleaded not guilty to charges of indecent assault, buggery and attempted buggery dating back to the 1970s and 1980s through to 1992, against children aged between nine and 15, with offences alleged to have taken place in Derbyshire, the Crewe area and at Butlin’s in Pwllheli, north Wales.
Convicted Establishment Paedophile, Patrick Rock stood unsuccessfully in Crewe and Nantwich in 1983.
Establishment paedophile/”noted pederat” Sir Peter Morrison:
The following are the recollections of Grahame Nicholls, who ran the Chester Trades Council (Morrison was the MP for Chester from 1974 to 1992), who wrote:
After the 1987 general election, around 1990, I attended a meeting of Chester Labour party where we were informed by the agent, Christine Russell, that Peter Morrison would not be standing in 1992. He had been caught in the toilets at Crewe station with a 15-year-old boy. A deal was struck between Labour, the local Tories, the local press and the police that if he stood down at the next election the matter would go no further. Chester finished up with Gyles Brandreth and Morrison walked away scot-free. I thought you might be interested. (cited in ‘Simon Hoggart’s week’, The Guardian, November 16th, 2012).
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
What a match! Paedophile Peter Morrison in Chester and Patrick Rock, collector of fine child abuse images in Crewe!
FA to probe clubs over abuse hush money
Chelsea made secret payment to player in child sex abuse claim
Chelsea sanctioned a secret payment to a former youth team footballer who accused the club’s ex-chief scout of child sexual abuse
Chelsea’s chief scout, Eddie Heath, from 1968 to 1979 and discovered some of the club’s greatest players, including Ray Wilkins.
The alleged victim was paid off after threatening to go public with claims he was sexually assaulted in the 1970s by Eddie Heath, Chelsea’s influential chief scout for more than a decade.
The payment, made in the past three years, was agreed on condition that the victim, his family and lawyers were banned from talking about the alleged abuse.
The confidentiality agreement is so stringent, the parties involved in the case are not even allowed to acknowledge its existence. But after being approached by The Telegraph, which first disclosed that a payment had been made by a Premier League side, Chelsea issued a statement on Tuesday night confirming it had “retained” an outside law firm to carry out a full investigation concerning an individual employed by the club in the 1970s, who is now deceased.
The club, owned by the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, did not deny the claim that they had paid Heath’s accuser and settled the case.
It is understood the club initially rebuffed the claim, but decided to make a payment when the victim threatened to make the allegations public
Eight forces – the Metropolitan Police, Greater Manchester Police, Cheshire Police, Staffordshire Police, Northumbria Police, Hampshire Police, Police Scotland – are examining claims of historic sex abuse in football.
Confidentiality Agreements
BBC News – Football abuse: Several clubs may have used confidentiality clauses, lawyer says
Cassandra Cogno @CassandraCogno
But weren’t confidentiality clauses for survivors an Henriques report recommendation?
Trent @RandolphTrent
Similar to Penn State
Derek Richardson (left) played for Chelsea’s youth team before going on to represent QPR. He is pictured with former Blues boss Eddie McCreadie (centre) and Steve Sherwood
Second Chelsea player alleges abuse was rife while Eddie Heath was at club: ‘He sexually harassed boys… but we knew we were finished if we spoke out’
- Chelsea paid £50,000 to Eddie Heath sex abuse victim Gary Johnson
- A second former Blues footballer has opened up about alleged abuse
- Derek Richardson claimed boys were abused in showers on club premises
- Sportsmail has been told that Heath was known by kids as ‘man in the van’
- Chelsea legend Alan Hudson has called him a ‘nonce’ on social media
Chelsea’s role in football’s child abuse scandal deepened on Friday as a former player claimed boys were abused in showers on club premises in the 1970s.
Derek Richardson, a goalkeeper who played for their youth team before going on to represent Queens Park Rangers and Sheffield United, said Chelsea’s former chief scout Eddie Heath preyed on youngsters at the club’s old training ground in Mitcham, south London
The guy was always flicking the private parts of the boys when they were in the shower or changing. He would make out like it was a joke. It was sexual harassment. There were a load of people who knew what was going on. If anyone had come out and said anything they would have disappeared. You would never see them again at the club. He was responsible for either bringing you in or throwing you out.
Crewe Alexandra suspected Barry Bennell, says former board member
Nov 26 2016
The former Crewe coach was kept on despite former chairman recommending he be sacked as suspicion grew.
Hamilton Smith, a former director of football at Crewe Alexandra, has said that convicted paedophile ex-coach Barry Bennell was kept on at the club despite growing concerns about his behaviour. Smith says Bennell was the subject of a board meeting at Crewe — the club at the centre of the child sex abuse in football scandal — in which then-chairman Norman Rowlinson recommended they “get him out”.
Smith served on the board at Crewe between 1986 and 1990 and told The Guardian he asked for a meeting with colleagues at the club after it was alleged by someone during a junior football match that their friend’s son had been abused by Bennell.
Though members of the board discussed finding a new youth-team coach, it was ultimately decided Bennell would stay on – but that he should not be left alone with the young players nor should overnight stays be allowed.
Paedophile football coach Barry Bennell spent two years as a care worker at a children’s home.
Bennell was employed at a residential school in Derbyshire from November 1979 to July 1981.
Taxal Edge residential school in Whaley Bridge, Derbys.
In 1998, Bennell, now 62, was jailed for nine years at Chester crown court after admitting 23 charges of sexual offences against six boys aged nine to 15.
Wonder how many others were involved in care homes??
Alex Carlile QC, prosecutor in the 1998 Barry Bennell case
Bennell – 1998 jailed – Chester crown court- same era as John Allen – and the paedo networks around Bryn?
Barry Bennell ran summer season vacation camps within the UK
Police are now probing Bruce McLean, 60, another former staff member at Taxal Edge residential school in Whaley Bridge, Derbys.
Abuse At Taxal Lodge
30 January 2011
I was abused at Taxal Lodge from the age of 8 to 15 years of age. I am now 46 years old and for the first time I am ready to face up to my abusers….
Bob Higgins
Dan Roan @danroan
Football League confirm they sent letter in 89 to member clubs, advising them not to work with Bob Higgins Academy
Paul johnson @paul__johnson
Football League warned all clubs in 1989 about coach named in connection with abuse. He was still working days ago
Cassandra Cogno @CassandraCogno
What does the All Party Parliamentary group on Football actually do?
Football sex abuse scandal explodes with eight coaches jailed for over 100 crimes
THE football sex abuse scandal exploded after it emerged eight youth coaches have been jailed for 100 sex crimes.
27th November 2016
Ex-Celtic man Jim Torbett was locked up for two years in 1998 for committing indecency with three victims.
The FA has launched an official internal probe into abuse.
Professional Footballers’ Association boss Gordon Taylor revealed more than 20 current and former footballers have now come forward.
Asked to name the clubs involved, he said: “We’d start at Crewe, go to Man City, Stoke, Blackpool, Newcastle, Leeds.
The eight jailed coaches included Bristol-based Christopher Flavin and Scotland women’s youth team coach Hugh Flynn.
MP praises bravery of victims of child abuse in football
Edward Timpson’s message to victims: ‘You’re not alone
justme @zante03
Weird innit, they dont seem that interested in child abuse vics of MPs or VIPs but are in football coach vics
It’s astounding. #football peeps believed instantly.
VIP + MP vics called fantasists in newspapers #leicester #labour
Cassandra Cogno @CassandraCogno
Why is David Mellor now being interviewed on child abuse in football without being asked essential qns on Home Office role in early 1980s?
2015: Leon Brittan and Geoffrey Dickens’ notes on 23/11/1983 meeting which David Mellor forgot he attended
https://twitter.com/shamindernahal
No-one brought up problem of abuse in football when I was heading Blair’s football taskforce – I wish they had: David Mellor tells
Mr Mellor, who led a government-ordered football task force in the late 1990s
Cassandra Cogno @CassandraCogno
Just like no one told Mellor about the meeting with Brittan & Dickens because surely Brittan would have wanted someone there!
On 23 November 1983, Mr Dickens met Lord Brittan, junior Home Office minister David Mellor and three others, believed to be civil servants…
on the question of banning PIE
There was no Home Office cover-up over Geoffrey Dickens’ dossier
Crafty Muvva @craftymuvva
Will the police be looking in to the @FootballAssoc 2001 investigation in to #Bennell when they found “no case to answer”?
via ww:
An internal investigation – findings not shared with the police – significant numbers banned – and a coverup – since the public were not informed/advised.
Children at risk for the sake of (cash) revenue…
FA banned dozens of coaches after football commission
Nov 28 2016
Former FA chief executive Mark Palios has told ITV’s Good Morning Britain around 60 to 70 coaches were banned from football after a 2001 commission into abuse.
He said the commission was carried out in partnership with the Premier League and Football League.
Mr Palios said he was unaware if the information was passed on to police as the commission had preceded his arrival at the FA in 2003.
NSPCC involved-
18 September 2005
Top football clubs hit by child abuse allegations
· Seventy banned over ‘threat to children’ fears
The commission, set up in 2001 by the FA, the Premiership and the Football League with support from ministers, gives no details of the child abuse investigations that it cites in its 60-page report, but they are thought to include inappropriate behaviour and bullying.
The report, compiled with the help of the NSPCC, makes 23 recommendations to strengthen child protection. It also lists a series of ways in which children involved in the game are placed at risk.
Steve Boocock, director of the NSPCC’s child protection in sport unit, conceded that youngsters remained vulnerable within football, but said that the safety of children had improved: ‘Football still has a way to go, but, if we were to look back five years, it has come a long way.’
cathyfoxblog @CathyCathyFox
2005 Football Commission report on child protection in football http://www.theifc.co.uk/publications/documents/ChildProtectionReport.pdf …
Football clubs shut out ‘jobs worth’ child abuse investigators
The FA launched a landmark investigation into child protection measures at all of its associated clubs in 2001, – funding was pulled from the programme two years later
The FA scrapped a flagship scheme in 2003 meant to protect children from sexual abuse
FA ‘pulled all funding’ from child protection project
Lord Pendry was appointed the President of the Football Foundation in February 2003 and he continues to serve in this position. A young Pendry learnt boxing at the hands of a Benedictine monk
Two local politicians and One convicted Paedophile
Lord Pendry with convicted paedophile Stuart Hall and Jonathan Reyonds MP ( PPS to James Purnell)
Jonathan Reynolds MP worked for four years as a political assistant for the previous Stalybridge and Hyde MP James Purnell[7]
James Purnell
Between May 1994 and October 1995 he was a Labour Councillor in Islington,
Child rape images on the chairman of Labour Freemason James Purnell’s computer.
Convicted paedophile Labour 
Councillor Paul Diggett, political researcher to Labour’s James Purnell
DISGRACED parliamentary candidate Paul Diggett is facing expulsion from the Labour Party and a possible jail sentence after he used an MP’s computer to trawl the internet for under-age girls.
Diggett, who stood for Labour as a Parliamentary candidate for Cheadle in 1997, was a researcher to Labour MP James Purnell, 34, a close ally of Tony Blair.
Diggett pleaded guilty to four charges of making and distributing indecent pictures and pseudo photographs of children between February and October 2002.
Paul Diggett downloaded images of children being raped. Paul Diggett was not only a Labour man but worked as a School governor, the favourite job for PIE affiliates.
News from Sept 30 2016
Former Labour cabinet minister James Purnell will be unveiled as the BBC’s new £300,000 a year radio chief today.
With overall responsibility for BBC radio’s editorial output, Purnell’s elevation has triggered concerns among some Tory MPs about impartiality.
As well as having been a member of a Labour government, Purnell has twice been an advisor to Tony Blair and is a former Labour councillor in Islington (where else?).
Lord Pendry takes penalty at Stalybridge Celtic opening
07/10/2014
Lord Pendry and Garry Pearce, Club Chairman, mark the opening of the refurbished facilities
Lord Pendry opens refurbished changing rooms in Tameside
Football Foundation President, Lord Tom Pendry, officially opened Stalybridge Celtic Juniors’ refurbished changing rooms recently. The new state-of-the-art facility, located in Lord Pendry’s former constituency of Stalybridge and Hyde, was made possible thanks to a £90,844 grant from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund, which is delivered by the Football Foundation.
Lord Pendry, who lives in Stalybridge and who also has a stand named after him at Stalybridge Celtic’s Bower Fold home, was given a tour of the refurbished facility which now contains two large changing rooms and a club room which will allow the club to provide a safe and comfortable environment for players, coaches and parents. The club room will help to generate other revenue streams for the club and also allow for coach education to take place at the site.
The club worked in partnership with the Cheshire FA to secure a £90,844 grant from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund
Funded by the Premier League, The FA, and the Government, via Sport England, the Premier League and The FA Facilities Fund is delivered by the Football Foundation, the country’s largest sports charity. Since it was launched in 2000 by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair and Lord Pendry, the Foundation has awarded around 13,000 grants worth more than £500m towards improving grassroots sport, which it has used to attract additional partnership funding of over £700m – over £1.2bn of investment into the grassroots game.
Gary Pearce, Chairman of Stalybridge Celtic Juniors, said “The Club would like to thank Lord Pendry for opening the new clubhouse and also the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund. Without their generous funding we would not have been able to carry out this work. The new clubhouse will benefit all the children who play for Stalybridge Celtic Juniors and attend our Soccer School. It will also give us a base to develop the skills of our coaches and attract more volunteers who we depend on to make this club what it is.”
Lord Pendry, President of the Football Foundation, commented: “It was a privilege to officially open the refurbished clubhouse at Stalybridge Celtic Juniors. This facility will have a hugely positive effect on grassroots sport and the community in Stalybridge. I have seen first-hand just how much effort is put in by volunteers at the club all year round and I look forward to seeing the club go from strength to strength as a result of the funding from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund.”
Louisa Compton @louisa_compton
The FA scrapped a flagship scheme in 2003 meant to protect children from sexual abuse
FA ‘pulled all funding’ from child protection project
The Football Association scrapped a flagship project meant to ensure children were being protected from sexual abuse, the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme has learned.
In 2003, the FA pulled all funding from a major review of its child protection policies, three years early.
An evaluation of the project later suggested some FA staff had also been bullied into not talking.
The FA said it could not comment due to a new review into sex abuse.
It has instructed independent leading counsel Kate Gallafent QC to oversee an internal review, following allegations of sexual abuse in football.
It is understood the decision to pull funding for the project in 2003 will form part of this.
‘FA resistance’
The five-year research study was commissioned by the FA in 2001 to map the state of child protection across all clubs, and to monitor the impact of a new strategy it had rolled out across England to protect under-18s.
It was thought to be the first sports body in the world to commission such detailed research into child protection.
In the first two years of the project, a team of academics behind the study interviewed 189 children and spoke to senior coaches, referees and administrators across all levels of the game.
The authors were effectively representatives of the FA – carrying FA badges and business cards.
But an evaluation of the project published in 2007 appears to show the project met some resistance from inside the Football Association itself.
It said the authors found some staff at the organisation had been bullied into not talking, and that information had not been provided on time or in enough detail.
Of the 13 members of FA staff contacted by the academics to give interviews and evidence for the project, only four responded.
Across the project as a whole, the authors were described as being “seen as the police” and subject to some verbal attacks.
The researchers were said to have found a “wall of silence” from some people they had tried to speak to.
‘Used to deflect attention’
It is understood that in April 2002 the scale of the project was significantly scaled back, with some internet survey work reduced and the number of interviews cut in half.
Then in 2003, after the sudden resignation of Adam Crozier as FA chief executive, all funding was pulled and the project was closed down three years before it was due to complete its work.
The authors were told the decision had been because of budget cuts at the FA.
The report’s lead author, Celia Brackenridge from Brunel University, said she had to threaten the organisation with legal action in the small claims court to pay its bills.
She wrote in her notes at the time: “The whole business has drained me and left me feeling even more cynical about their stated intentions to develop welfare initiatives.
“England have been warned that they will be kicked out of the European Cup if there is one more pitch invasion or racist incident at a game and that should at least keep the new equity strategy to the forefront but, as for child protection, who knows?”
She later wrote: “It left me asking myself whether some of the senior officers in the game might not be simply using child protection as a kind of ethical fig leaf, to cover their embarrassment at the many problems facing the game – doping, crowd control, bungs and fixes – among others.
“The more the FA could trumpet their work for children, the better they could deflect attention from the uglier side of the game.”
But Ms Brackenridge said some senior FA staff, directly responsible for child protection, were “exemplary” in their dealings with the research team.
At the time funding was removed, and the project ended, she said their work did show that the new measures introduced by the FA appeared to be working effectively.
‘Extremely concerning’
MP Damian Collins, chairman of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, said claims the FA scrapped the project were “extremely concerning”.
“It helps to feed the impression that many people will have, that people within football were aware that there was a problem with child protection – people at clubs, people at the FA.
“People will now look at this story and say ‘is this further evidence that there were some people at the Football Association who didn’t want to pursue this as properly as they should have done, which may have meant that stories of abuse went unreported and [were not] investigated?’.”
In an interview with the BBC on Tuesday, FA chairman Greg Clarke described how he had talked to all 43 English county Football Associations about their safeguarding procedures which were “front of mind” in the FA.
“We have a lot of people working on it,” he said. “We have 8,500 safeguarding officers, 55,000 criminal record checks done on people every year and we have 35000 people trained every year in child safe guarding.
“I don’t think we can ever say things are clean,” he added.
“Because our job is to be paranoid about the safety of children in our game, every year we need to assume bad things are happening, and make sure our process, and our training, and our investment is as good as it can be and we do that every year overseen by the NSPCC and you will never see complacency at the FA.”
Stuart Hall’s good friend Lord Pendry – the former shadow sports minister.
Convicted paedophile Stuart Hall:
‘When I played (he was once offered terms by Crystal Palace), Joe Mercer called me a fanny merchant because all I wanted to do was beat people. I would not mind being known for that.’
Shankly, Paisley, Clough, Revie and Best. I knew George personally. He was a drinking pal of mine, roistering at Slack Alice and various low dives in Manchester.
NSPCC volunteer and Wigan football club chairman give glowing character references for former BBC star Stuart Hall, 83, as he is jailed for abusing girls as young as nine
Centre stage: Stuart Hall introduces a young fan to Manchester City’s Colin Bell
Lord Pendry and Stuart Hall
Stuart Hall was a director of Oyston Estate Agency LTDhttps://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/05141913 …
Lord Tom Pendry & Owen Oystonhttp://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199899/cmhansrd/vo991021/text/91021w11.htm …
Lord Tom Pendry, President and shareholder of Oyston Steel Estates.
Owen Oyston was convicted and jailed for the rape of a 16 year old girl who worked for a modelling agency connected to his friend Peter Martin
Lord Tom Pendry President of the Football Foundation Ltd
Lord Pendry – Sports Advisor to Tameside District Council Sports Trust
Lord Tom Pendry from Broadstairs, Kent.
Ted Heath was a member of Broadstairs Sailing Club.
Lord Pendry’s good friend convicted paedophile Stuart Hall:
Stuart Hall – Major collector of Antique Clocks – GCHQ Freemason paedophile PIE ember Keith Harding . Did he visit Keith Harding’s shop?
MUSIC box collector and clock maker Keith Harding, whose staff restored antiques for royalty, played a vital role in Britain’s biggest child sex ring.
He is understood to have kept hidden a list of more than 1,000 PIE members with prominent names including top politicians from the Thatcher era.
Harding was given the Freedom of the City of London and made a member of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers.
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Keith Harding’s shop, was not too far away from, where Jeremy Corbyn lives. And a number of PIE members lived near by the shop.
Remember the Jim’ll Fixit episode featuring Keith Harding? Guess who did the sinister film work outside the shop and shop window!
It was David Secrett, a trusted employee at Keith Harding’s shop.
Have a guess where Secrett lived and worked in the 90s!
It was Thornham Magna.
Lord Henniker offered Righton and Alston refuge there when they fled Evesham in 1992. He employed Napier
in senior positions teaching abroad with British Council and rans Islington’s Suffolk children’s scheme.
From what I have been hearing, it is virtually proven that Harding liked to take boys to Amsterdam.
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
4:06 – spy
Keith Harding’s David Secrett was a part-time spy.
Arsenal manager Bertie Mee (1918 – 2001) with the borough mayor Robin Goodman and a mace bearer at a celebration of Arsenal’s FA Cup victory.
link
Troy @snowfaked
The mayor of Islington, Alderman Robin Goodman, visiting PIE member Keith Harding’s shop -Harding Antiques 1971
Martin Walkerdine @mwalkerdine
Keith Harding Northleach Steam & Vintage Show 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq7ZpJxtNZo&feature=youtu.be …
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
johnwhittingdale.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=3 …
I also worked for Leon Brittan, the man who went to visit PIE member Keith Harding with Cyril Smith and Jeremy Thorpe
http://www.wiltsglosstandard.co.uk/news/11291767.display/ … This obit links Keith Harding to just about everything: Railways, CoE, RAF pilot,…
John Whittingdale, half-brother of convicted PIE secretary Napier was SPAD to Brittan who was close friend of Keith Harding. Coincidence?
Super rich Chelsea Football Cub – Hush money -Eddie Heath
Dec 2 2016
After 40 years of torment, Gary Johnson hoped he would get justice for the abuse he says he suffered as a Chelsea FC youth player.
Yet the ex-forward, who said he was sexually assaulted by chief scout Eddie Heath hundreds of times in three years, said he had no success with the police and that the Professional Footballers Association did not return his calls.
He felt he had no other option but to approach his super-rich former club, which refused to accept any blame but last year paid him £50,000 to keep quiet.
Now, in an exclusive interview, Gary, 57, bravely waives his right to anonymity to share his experiences to support other victims of the soccer abuse scandal.
Gary, part of Chelsea’s first team from 1978 to 81, said Heath groomed him and sexually assaulted from the age of 13.
He said: “I felt shame, I felt my childhood had been taken away. I spent my late teens in turmoil, absolute turmoil.”
And speaking of the payment from his old club, he said: “I think that they were paying me to keep a lid on this.
“Millions of fans around the world watch Chelsea. They are one of the biggest and richest clubs in the world.
They asked me to sign a gagging order and how many others are there out there?
“They may have paid others for their silence. I hope and pray no clubs are allowed to cover this up – no one should escape justice. We need total transparency now…”
This week Chelsea waived the clause in Gary’s settlement banning him from speaking about abuse after details of his claim were leaked to the media.
Last night it was suggested the club – ranked the seventh most valuable in the world at £1.35billion – may have broken Premier League rules by -sanctioning a secret payment to Gary.
Under the regulations, teams are obliged to notify the league and the Football Association of any evidence they obtain of child abuse.
It is not known if the club made any attempt to contact authorities about his allegations or if any other former players have approached with similar claims.
Numerous football clubs have used ‘gagging order’ to silence sex abuse, says lawyer supporting victims
Paedophile football coach Barry Bennell is rushed to hospital after being found unconscious at a hotel
- Barry Bennell is under investigation as part of the football abuse scandal
- He was moved out of his home as a series of players made allegations
- It has now emerged he was found unconscious at a hotel on Friday
- He is understood to be receiving treatment at a nearby hospital
Football sex abuse claims: What’s happened so far?
More than 20 former footballers have so far come forward with allegations of historical child sex abuse in football, with five police forces investigating.
The Football Association has announced an internal review, an NSPCC hotline has received more than 100 calls and individual clubs are conducting their own inquiries.
Ex-Crewe defender Andy Woodward waived his right to anonymity to reveal his ordeal and several other former professionals have done the same.
One of the players who spoke out, former Tottenham and Liverpool midfielder Paul Stewart, said the sport could face allegations on the scale of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
After his death, former DJ and television presenter Savile was found to be one of the UK’s most prolific sexual predators.
Here’s what has happened so far.
Who has spoken out?
16 November: Former Bury and Sheffield United player Andy Woodward, 43, tells the Guardian he was sexually abused by convicted paedophile and former football coach Barry Bennell while at Crewe Alexandra between the ages of 11 and 15.
22 November: Steve Walters, 44, also claims he was sexually abused by Bennell while at Crewe. Walters, who in 1988 became the club’s youngest debutant, also made the allegations to the Guardian.
23 November: Former England and Tottenham footballer Paul Stewart, 52, tells the Mirror he was sexually abused as a youth player. Stewart, who began his professional career with Blackpool and also played for Manchester City and Liverpool, claims an unnamed coach – not Bennell – abused him daily for four years.
23 November: Ex-Manchester City striker David White, 49, alleges he was also sexually abused by Bennell in the late 1970s and early 1980s, while playing for Whitehill FC junior team in Manchester.
24 November: According to the Guardian, an anonymous ex-footballer has contacted police to say he was a victim of George Ormond – a former Newcastle United youth coach who was jailed in 2002 for offences against young footballers in the area. Police are investigating an allegation of “historical sexual offences in Newcastle”.
25 November: Two other men speak on Friday’s edition of the Victoria Derbyshire programme. Jason Dunford and Chris Unsworth say they were abused by Bennell as youth players.
27 November: Anthony Hughes told the Sunday Mirror that Bennell abused him on a sofa while he was at Crewe Alexandra’s centre of excellence.
27 November: As the FA announced an internal review of what it knew, former trainee footballer Ian Ackley told BBC Radio 5 live’s Sportsweek about his abuse by Bennell.
- Watch: Paul Stewart says there will be ‘hundreds’ of victims
- FA must protect next generation from abuse – Greg Clarke
- Listen: ‘5% of boys report being sexually abused in sport’
All those named above have waived their right to lifelong anonymity to speak out to the media.
What did the ex-footballers say?
Andy Woodward: “It was his way of finding out which players were the weaker ones or the softer ones. It started within a few weeks. Initially it was sexually touching but it rapidly got worse and he raped me. I don’t want to put a number on how many times it happened, but it was over a four-year period.”
Steve Walters: “I just had to pretend it never happened and block it out. I knew it could never come out and I was absolutely petrified because I thought that if it did ever come out that would be it for my career – finished. All these years, I’ve had this secret inside me. It’s been unbearable but, just from reading the article from Andy, it already feels like a massive burden off my shoulders. I have to do this, and I just hope it will help bring more people forward, too.”
Paul Stewart: “One day, travelling in the car, he started to touch me. It frightened me to death, I did not know what to do. It progressed to sexually abusing me. He said he would kill my mother, my father, my two brothers if I breathed a word about it. The mental scars led me into other problems with drink and drugs. The level of abuse got worse and worse. I was always under threat, if I was not playing well, he would threaten me with violence as well as sexual abuse. He was a monster.”
David White: “While I believe throughout my football career I have come to terms with what had happened, I now realise the effects of Bennell’s actions were much more far-reaching than I knew then. I have come to terms with the fact Bennell’s actions influenced almost every event and relationship in my life.”
Ian Ackley: “Once it finished it was a case of pretending it did not happen. It was almost like a double life. I was trapped in that dream of wanting to make it as a footballer. It was habitual – every weekend, school holiday, football trips.”
Anthony Hughes: “As adults we now understand what was going on was just so terribly wrong. I cannot praise [Andy Woodward] Woody enough for his bravery in speaking out.”
Who is Barry Bennell?
Barry Bennell has been taken to hospital after police responded to a “fear for welfare incident” at an address in Stevenage on Friday.
A statement from Thames Valley Police said: “Police officers attended an address in Knebworth Park, Stevenage just before 11pm on Friday, November 25 in connection with a fear for welfare incident.
“A 62-year-old man was located and was taken to hospital in order to receive medical treatment, where he remains.”
Woodward, Walters, White and Ackley all say they were abused by Bennell.
He was sentenced to nine years in prison in 1998 after admitting sexual offences against six boys.
- Bennell was a youth coach at Crewe Alexandra in the 1980s and 1990s and also had a close association with Stoke City and Manchester City.
- He has been jailed three times for child sex abuse – including once in America.
- He was jailed most recently in 2015 for two years – with a minimum term of 12 months – for a historical sexual offence committed against a 12-year-old boy on a football pitch in Macclesfield.
- Florida Police said he had an “insatiable appetite” for young boys.
- His crimes were, at one point, the subject of a Channel 4 Dispatches programme.
- He described himself as a “monster” while giving evidence in court in 2015.
- He remains permanently suspended from football.
What have the clubs said?
On Thursday, Manchester City released a statement saying: “The club is aware of allegations that Barry Bennell had an association with Manchester City Football Club in the 1980s. As a result the club is currently undertaking a thorough investigation of any past links he might have had with the organisation.”
Newcastle said they had not received any complaint, but would “cooperate fully with the police and relevant authorities”.
On Saturday, Crewe announced they would hold an independent internal review into the way it handled historical child sex abuse allegations about their former coach Bennell.
On Sunday, PFA chairman Gordon Taylor said there were at least “six or seven clubs” including Blackpool, Leeds and Stoke connected with “particular individuals”
Blackpool and Leeds released statements saying neither club had received any information.
Have there been any arrests?
No, but five police forces are investigating so far – Cheshire, Hampshire, Northumbria, the Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester.
Across the sporting industry, Operation Hydrant, the national police hub coordinating historical sex abuse claims, has said it is investigating 17 sports people and allegations of abuse at 24 sporting venues.
The Premier League said it was concerned by the allegations and urged those with information to come forward.
What has been the reaction?
Sports Minister Tracey Crouch said the former players had shown “incredible bravery” to speak out.
Former England striker Gary Lineker posted on Twitter after Stewart’s story was published: “Wish my former Spurs team-mate Paul Stewart all the very best. Extremely courageous in telling his appalling story. Really hope his speaking out helps him and others. Utterly sickening.”
Former England rugby union player Brian Moore – who was abused as a child – tweeted: “Football isn’t to blame for recent sex abuse revelations but it does now have a responsibility to find out the extent of what happened.”
Former England midfielder Danny Murphy, who came through the ranks at Crewe when Bennell was at the club, described the coach as “charismatic”, but a “bit of a tyrant”.
Murphy added the football environment is “a perfect breeding ground for anybody who wants to do things to children”.
Manchester United and England captain Wayne Rooney, an NSPCC ambassador, said: “It’s awful that some of my colleagues have suffered this way whilst playing the sport that I and they love. It’s important that people know that it’s OK to speak out, there is help available and that they don’t need to suffer in silence.”
The head of equality and safeguarding at the Football Association (FA), Sue Ravenlaw, said the “courage and dignity” shown by the four former footballers was “immense”.
The Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) said it hoped other people affected will “have the confidence” to come forward as a result of the players’ “bravery”.
“I am expecting there will be more,” PFA chief Gordon Taylor told BBC Radio 5 live’s Sportsweek, adding he did not believe it would just be confined to north east and north west clubs.
“I am mindful it could be throughout the country where children are there; church, schools and other areas we are well acquainted with over the past few years.”
What have Crewe said?
On Saturday, Crewe said they were determined a thorough investigation took place at the earliest opportunity.
In a statement the club said it “believes an independent review, to be conducted via the appointment of external legal counsel, is the correct way forward in the circumstances”.
Last week, Crewe chairman John Bowler told BBC sports editor Dan Roan he was “infuriated and very disappointed” about Bennell’s crimes.
Bowler, who was chairman at the time of Bennell’s offences, was asked whether more could have been done. He replied: “When we’ve done our inquiries and looked at the detail of the various accusations, then I’ll be in a position to answer that kind of question.”
Crewe director of football Dario Gradi, who has been associated with the club for more than 30 years and was manager from 1983 to 2007, said he “knew nothing” about Bennell’s abuse of young footballers until his arrest in the US in 1994.
Woodward said it was “scandalous” Crewe had taken so long to address the case and said no-one at the club has ever apologised to him.
What about football’s authorities?
Senior FA officials met Woodward on Thursday to discuss the allegations in more detail.
And on Sunday it instructed independent leading counsel Kate Gallafent QC to oversee its internal review, saying it would look into “what information the FA was aware of at the relevant times, what clubs were aware of, and what action was or should have been taken”.
The FA said it was working closely with police, adding it “must ensure we do not do anything to interfere with or jeopardise the criminal process”.
Ravenlaw, meanwhile, reiterated the FA’s safeguards:
- Criminal record checks are required for those in regulated activity with children.
- More than 35,000 people go through the FA’s safeguarding children awareness workshop, or tailored training every season.
- The FA requires every club or league with affiliated teams who are under 18, to have a named, trained designated safeguarding officer, who has been criminal record checked.
Conservative MP Damian Collins told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday that The FA has been too slow in reacting to allegations of sexual abuse in football and must launch a “much wider” inquiry.
The culture, media and sport committee chairman told the BBC the FA review into claims ex-players were abused as children needed to establish if there was a cultural problem in the sport.
- The FA is also supporting a hotline set up by the NSPCC. It is available 24 hours a day on 0800 0232642
How widespread could abuse be?
Woodward told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme he believed his experience was “the tip of the iceberg”.
Stewart, meanwhile, said “hundreds” of children may have been sexually abused by figures within football.
Asked if he feared the allegations football is facing could be as big as the Savile scandal, he told the BBC: “Yes, I do, for sure. I would almost guarantee it as long as the victims are willing to come forward.”
The NSPCC’s John Cameron said it could be “reminiscent of Operation Yewtree”, a police investigation set up in 2012 to examine allegations of sexual abuse by Savile, which subsequently dealt with cases involving other celebrities.
“This is going to have an enormous impact,” he told BBC Radio 5 live. “There are more players out there that both the NSPCC and FA strongly suspect have been victims of sexual abuse.
“It is an absolute disgrace and misuse of authority, and hopefully a number of people will be brought to account.”
PFA chief Gordon Taylor said: “Because of Andy Woodward’s bravery, many other ex-players and apprentices are now contacting us – it is double figures now – and that is a timely warning for everybody in football about our duty of care to these youngsters.”
Could abuse still be happening?
Former Chelsea and Scotland winger Pat Nevin says he “wouldn’t be surprised” to discover young footballers are still being sexually abused.
Nevin told BBC Radio 5 live he is “surprised” but not “shocked” by the recent allegations because he believes youth football provides a “ripe” environment for paedophiles to operate.
Former FA chief executive Mark Palios, now executive chairman at Tranmere Rovers, said he thought football was in a “better position today than 20 or 30 years ago”.
“You can never be complacent you have got rid of it in the game, you have to be constantly vigilant,” he told BBC Radio 5 live.
“This is a timely reminder, all clubs should test what happens in practice, they all have regulations and what is required these regulations are honoured. It is a wake up call to clubs to check these things.”
Football club boss led evil double life for nearly 40 years
A football club boss described as a ‘manipulative and ruthless paedophile’ has been locked up indefinitely. Ken Hughes, 65, who was the founder and long-standing chairman of Oldham Town Football Club, sexually abused 12 young boys over a period of almost 40 years.
Norwich City FC
Convicted paedophile father Tony McSweeney – was once the chaplain of Norwich City Football Club & linked with Elm Guest House
Interesting how Norwich Club so far, didn’t seem to have a problem like so many of the other clubs did…e.g. Chris Geiler et all…
surprising because Norwich is linked w/ convicted paedophile Fr Tony McSweeney, Frank Bruno (friends with Savile, Purdews), and Stephen Fry – who has made numerous inappropriate comments about paedophilia and even wrote a “comedy” about it.
Fr Tony McSweeney links to Elm Guest House
McSweeney was arrested as a result of a police investigation into allegations that Elm House guesthouse in Barnes was home to a paedophile ring that preyed on boys from nearby Grafton Close children’s home.
Cops probed allegations dating to 1977 that kids from three council
children’s homes were taken to Elm Guest House to be abused.
Catholic priest guilty of historic Richmond Council children’s home abuse
McSweeney was found guilty of indecently assaulting one boy who he watched in the shower at Grafton Close children’s home in Hanworth alongside John Stingemore, the former manager of the home.
Westminster paedophile ring allegations: Scotland Yard detectives trace ‘victim’
Alleged victim of paedophile sex abuse interviewed in United States at request of Scotland Yard
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
^ If the 2 persons referred to here are Eric Kasir and Leon Brittan, why is The Telegraph allowing Brittan’s name to be whitewashed?
2.35 – Tom Watson / PMQs / D-Notice / Leon Brittan / Harvey Proctor
[CHRIS] the one interesting thing above all else, when Tom Watson asked a question in the House of Commons recently, as you know
[BILL] Member of Parliament
[CHRIS] Member of Parliament, he also asked about the use of D-Notices. D-Notices are notices that they’re supposed to be advisory, but basically the government doesn’t like a story in the newspapers about to print, it’ll slap a D-Notice
[BILL] A D-Notice is a gagging order
[CHRIS] is a gagging order. Now when Mary Moss and I left the coroner’s court the entire world’s press was outside, obviously it was a very, very big story
[BILL] Absolutely
[CHRIS] Because we’d stood in the witness box, we’d named Leon Brittan we’d named Harvey Proctor, we’d told the inquest all the evidence we had about who’d been involved at the Elm Guest House, so by any stretch of the imagination it was big news story. When we got outside the coroner’s court there was, they were all there, BBC, ITV, Channel Four, Sky, you name it.
[BILL] Yeah
18.15 – Eric Kasir / Neil Kier / Carol Kasir
[CHRIS] I knew who to complain to, how the system worked. Now, when the police, because they thought, they knew that Carol Kasir’s son, Eric, was 10, was living there. They also suspected and their own words ‘that other children might be present’ they approached Richmond Services, told them about the raid. Now procedure dictates that normally you would have got, say, the local field social worker in the local office who would have come in with the police on the raid. Any children present, they would have taken, they would have taken them into care. However, on the day of the raid, the man from Kingston, err from Richmond Council, who, who was on the raid with the police was Neil Kier, the officer in charge of Grafton, who took Eric into care.
[BILL] That’s her son Eric?
[CHRIS] That’s her son Eric. So you can understand why Carol was so angry.
[BILL] So, so, she knew, she knew that all the kids were coming from this children’s home. Then what they done on the night of the raid was took her own child and put her own child in that children’s home.
[CHRIS] Not only that, but with the very guy who had been one of the people supplying the boys, so Carol knew full well what that meant.
And just who was that perpetrator Mr Settle? What other files were being stored at Barnes nick where Clive Driscoll was summoned?
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
Who leant on Eric Kasir? Why are hacks letting Leon Brittan get off with blue murder?
Did the questioning of Eric Kasir lead Paul Settle to believe that Leon Brittan, patron of Haroon Kasir’s EGH, was a paedophile?
Are you listening Mr Settle? What did you have to say about Leon Brittan after your team had interviewed Eric Kasir?
1984
Clockmaker Keith Harding played vital role in Britain’s biggest child sex ring
MUSIC box collector and clock maker Keith Harding, whose staff restored antiques for royalty, played a vital role in Britain’s biggest child sex ring.
The pervert met regularly with MPs Leon Brittan and Cyril Smith at his world-renowned workshop.
The former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe would also drop by along with key members of the vile Paedophile Information Exchange Steven Adrian Smith and Tom O’Carroll.
A PIE list seized in 1984 records Harding, who died from cancer last year aged 82, as member 329 and his address as Hornsey Road, Holloway, north London.
He is understood to have kept hidden a list of more than 1,000 PIE members with prominent names including top politicians from the Thatcher era.
One of his staff, who worked for him between 1980 and 1987, said: “Leon Brittan and Cyril Smith were both regular visitors to the shop.
Usually they would come in via the side door, other times they would ring the bell at the front entrance and come in.
“They’d straight away ask for Keith who would be coming down the stairs.
“Then they would then either go up to his office for a private meeting or they’d go out for several hours.”
Top Tory Leon Brittan ‘photographed entering underage sex den during police investigation’
The former MP for Cleveland and Whitby is said to have been snapped by officers on a 1986 surveillance operation focusing on rent boy orgies
Our sources say it is unclear what happened to the photographs or why the raid was called off.
A friend of the officer on the investigation said: “The rent boys would be driven to flats or garages where large groups of men were waiting.
“These included Brittan and Smith. Pictures were taken as men entered or left buildings where the abuse was taking place.”
AVENGER @REBELTROOP
The real reason why PIE existed…….
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
There are incredible similarities between no-name Hoskins and Wright buddy Settle. Is this a coincidence? Brave whistleblowers or stooges?
Did Settle and Hoskins have the ‘courage’ to be ‘whistleblowers’ because they were doing the bidding of those who commissioned them?
‘Fat Vicar’ Tony McSweeney who conducted Frank Bruno’s wedding is jailed for abusing boy at Grafton Close Children’s Home
Fr McSweeney has been jailed for three years for abusing a boy at a children’s home, in the first case to emerge from allegations of a VIP paedophile ring at Elm guesthouse in south London.
Father Tony McSweeney, 68, was arrested in February 2013 at his parish in St George’s, Norwich, where he was a respected member of the establishment. He was a member of the governing body of a Catholic school and at one time had served as part-time chaplain for Norwich football club.
Queens Park Rangers dragged into sex abuse storm with former
John Murray with Chris Geiler – Chimney Corner Hotel 1986
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Top men involved in big child sex ring Daily Express 03-02-89
The ringleaders, who will be sentenced today, used a football team, a cleaning firm and CB radio as fronts to lure boys into the racket.
Chris Geiler – football coach – on Moss Elm Guest House list
Document 4-6 Icke 40843, 15.1.13 RICHARD? ? THE ROUNDHOUSE DANES ROAD SHOOTASH NR ROMSEY HANTS ROMSEY 522143 TOM WILLIAM FIELD 23 HATCHWOOD DRIVE ST ALBANS S.W HERTS MR H? T? TEACHER. 36 STANHOPE GARDENS N.6 …….. CHRIS GEILER QPR FOOTBALL CLUB. YOUTH TEAM LEADER. * PC CHRISTOPHER DALTON. HOWDEN POLICE STN. HUMBERSIDE. * PC 1661 GERRY GOODWIN. BRANSHOLME OR PRIORY RD POLICE STN. MR GRANTHAM. PRISON OFFICER. WITHERNSEA. HULL PRISON. REVD ? WALTEN ST GEORGES RD HULL … KEN PALLISTER. HOLDERNESS RD. HULL. DOUG HOWLEY. LEEDS. WEST YORKS. TONY MILSOM. LEONARD STREET HULL..OF NEWTOWN … LAWRENCE BENJAMIN BROWN. PATRINGTON NR HULL. TONY WILLIAMS. BRIDGEND GLAMORGAN. PATRICK JONES. SURREY. 0293 884424. PETER LAWRENCE. 36 CHESTNUT GROVE STH CROYDON….pimp WILLIAM TIPTON. 14 TUDOR COURT. GUNNERSBURY AVE W5 Porn Merc ALBERT VIESER? THE BUNGALOW PARK RD EAST GRINSTEAD.
Exeter City Football
Uri Geller, then co-chairman of the local football club, Exeter City
The day Michael Jackson, Uri Geller and David Blaine pitched up at Exeter City FC
As travelling circus troupes go, the motley collective that pulled into Exeter railway station on 14 June 2002 takes some beating. It had been assembled by notorious cutlery-bothering psychic Uri Geller, then co-chairman of the local football club, Exeter City, and boasted some stellar names: the hungry, box-dwelling, pole-balancer David Blaine; the soul diva Patti Boulaye; and, at the top of the bill, the world-famous Michael Jackson, the King of Pop.
On the invitation of her dear friend Uri Geller, Patti Boulaye travelled to Exeter City FC with Michael Jackson and members of her Golden Jubilee Gospel .
They were to star at an event that Geller was staging to raise money for the cash-strapped City. Jacko agreed to help out his friend on the condition that the Exeter chairman brought along some “sick kids from hospitals” and gave half of the money raised to “children with Aids”. Geller shook on it, and so, after Boulaye belted out a gospel number and Blaine shuffled a pack of cards with laboured insouciance, Jackson took to a pitchside stage at City’s dilapidated St James Park ground.
“Hello to you wonderful people of Exeter,” he began, so timidly it would make his faltering oratory in the Martin Bashir interviews sound like Nixon taking on Frost. “We come here to support children with Aids,” he went on, “and help the people of Africa find a solution against the spread of HIV.” Then, with the unimpeachable logic of a man who had just vowed to stamp out a pandemic, he threw in an afterthought for good measure: “And malaria!”
With a 10,000-strong crowd cheering him on, Jackson delivered his piece de resistance. Ordering everyone in the ground to hold each hands, he simpered: “I mean it! Right now! Go ahead! Don’t be shy. Do it! Do it! Now, tell the person next to you that you care for them. Tell them that you love them. This is what makes the difference! Together we can make a change of the world. Together we can help to stop racism. Together we can help to stop prejudice. We can help the world live without fear. It’s our only hope! Without hope we are lost! I see Israel!!! I see Spain!”
It was at this point that someone asked Jackson whether England would give Denmark a right old shoeing in the second round of the World Cup the following day. “England is gonna win, yeah?” said a giggling Jacko.
And, of course, he was right: England ran out 3-0 winners. Which means that, with a 100% success rate, Michael Jackson was – and is likely to be for all time – the greatest football pundit the world has ever known.
Patti Boulaye moves in certain circles…link
Stephen Komlosy, Keith Vaz MP, Moira Stuart and Patti Boulaye, Keith Vaz’s wife Maria Fernandes at the House of Parliament
Michael Jackson Stockpiled Nude Images Of Children, According To Police Report
Authorities seized more than 80 video recordings and computer hard drives, as well as notes, diaries, documents, photographs and audiotapes.
Mohammed Al Fayed – friend to paedophiles Michael Jackson & vicar Guy Bennett – got football manager Ian Holloway‘s support for Jackson statue despite protests
Ian Holloway has thrown his weight behind Mohammed Al Fayed’s controversial plans to erect a statue of Michael Jackson at Fulham’s Craven Cottage.
Hundreds of fans have signed a petition in protest and a demonstration is planned on Sunday when Fulham host Blackpool.
Ian Holloway has also managed Queens Park Rangers, Plymouth Argyle, Leicester City, Blackpool and Crystal Palace.
Special guest: Jackson watches Fulham in 1999 alongside his Al Fayed
Michael Jackson child sex syndicate trial date set
The choreographer, 34, filed an amended complaint in September claiming Jackson and key staffers at MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures ran a “sophisticated child sexual abuse procurement and facilitation operation.”
Robson claims Jackson and his employees worked in concert to arrange his private meetings with underage fans, cover travel expenses and shower the youngsters with gifts.
“Make no mistake, Neverland Ranch was nothing but a well-orchestrated trap,” Finaldi previously told The News. “It was custom-built to attract kids so he could groom them and decide which to sexually abuse.”
The amended complaint, obtained by The News, added new negligence claims to his suit against the two companies.
Robson claims he was brought into Jackson’s orbit as a small child in the late 1980s after winning a dance competition in Australia organized by MJJ Ventures.
Two years later, a Jackson assistant contacted his family about meeting with The Gloved One and staying at Neverland during a trip to Los Angeles, he says.
The assistant served as Jacko’s “madam” or “procurer,” his filing states.
During that visit, Jackson allegedly sexually abused Robson. The abuse continued for eight years until Robson hit puberty and Jackson lost interest, according to the complaint.
During the pop icon’s 2005 molestation trial in Santa Barbara County, Robson denied he had been sexually abused. He later recanted, saying it took intensive therapy for him to come to terms with the abuse.
In 2013, Robson’s initial claims against Jackson’s estate were thrown out when a judge ruled he’d waited too long to sue. He is now pursuing the separate civil claims against Jackson’s companies.
A source in Jackson’s camp called the new complaint “too silly” to warrant a response.
A football coach has been warned he faces a long jail sentence after being found guilty of drugging and abusing young players during the 1970s.
Anthony Mitchell was brought to justice almost 40 years after assaulting two boys because on of his victims spotted him coaching young players again on pitches in Exeter.
A second victim was spurred to come forward when the Rolf Harris scandal re-ignited painful memories of his own childhood trauma.
Mitchell, now aged 78, ran a youth football club in Exeter for 26 years but used it as an opportunity to groom and abuse players in his teams.
He was a night worker at a newspaper distribution depot and persuaded his GP to prescribe him huge amounts of strong sleeping tablets to help him cope with the anti social hours.
He gave boys double doses of Mogadon in their bedtime drinks during the sleepover trips to his beach hut on Dawlish Warren and then abused them as they slept.
He was caught for the first time in 1980 when four boys complained and he was sent to jail for a year after admitted drugging and assaulting two of them.
He has now been convicted of abusing two other boys in the five years leading up to his earlier arrest and conviction and faces a lengthy jail term because the offences are more serious and sentences for child abuse have been increased in the intervening years.
The Judge also asked the prosecution to provide more information from the police high tech crime unit which found evidence on Mitchell’s computer of a sexual interest in children.
He questioned why it had not been made available in time to form part of the case against him and asked for an explanation from the Crown Prosecution Service.
He said:”It is of concern in a case like this where the defendant is protesting he has no sexual interest in children and it seems there is material to debunk that which is not available.
“As it happens, he has been convicted without that but if he had been acquitted then the two complainants who have been through the ordeal of coming to court would be entitled to be annoyed at the very least.”
elsewhere in the spor
Sex ‘monster’ Team USA gymnastics doctor is hit with 22 more charges of sexually assault after former athletes spoke out
- Michigan prosecutors filed 22 sexual assault charges against Larry Nassar
- Nassar has been accused for assaulting several women and girls he treated at a gymnastics gym, his Michigan State University office, and his home
- Nassar was a doctor for USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympic athletes
- 2000 Olympian Jamie Dantzscher is one of the dozen women and girls filing lawsuits against Nassar separately
goodnessandharmony 
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